• Abstract and Figures
• Public Full-text

Gov 2.0 Taskforce

Enhancing the discoverability & accessibility of government information

Prepared by: Mark Neely Head of Strategy [email protected]

Rallas Buttriss Principal Consultant [email protected]

27th November 2009

The views expressed in this report are those of the authors and should not be taken to be the views of the Government 2.0 Taskforce, its stakeholders or Secretariat.

www.hyro.com Contents 1 Executive Summary...... 4 1.1 Priority Recommendations – Cultural...... 5 1.2 Priority Recommendations – Technology...... 6 1.3 Priority Recommendations – Service Delivery...... 7 1.4 Longer Term Recommendations...... 7 2 Background & Introduction...... 9 2.1 Present Day...... 10 2.2 Australians’ Use of e-Government Services...... 11 2.3 Definitions...... 12 3 Overview of the main contributing factors...... 13 3.1 Citizens do not know how government is structured...... 13 3.2 Online search and discovery skills are varied...... 13 3.3 Search is treated as application-, service- or department-/agency-specific...... 14 3.4 Approaches to site structure, design and user experience are varied...... 14 3.5 Government language is frequently impenetrable...... 15 3.6 Web is largely still regarded as a non-core service channel...... 16 4 Effects of Poor Discoverability & Accessibility...... 17 4.1 On Citizens...... 17 4.2 On Business & Industry...... 17 4.3 On Government...... 18 5 Potential Benefits if Issues are Solved...... 19 6 Enhancing the Discoverability of Government Offerings...... 22 6.1 Improved Search Capability...... 22 6.2 Improved Precision and Contextual Relevance...... 23 6.3 Improved User Experience...... 24 6.4 Citizen-centric View of Government...... 26 6.5 Single Source of ‘The Truth’...... 29 7 Discoverability – Key Technologies for Consideration...... 30 7.1 Search...... 30 7.2 Supporting Technologies for Search...... 32 7.3 Resource Categorisation...... 33 8 Improving the Accessibility of Government Offerings...... 36 8.1 Implementation Considerations...... 38 8.2 Continuing Accessibility...... 38 8.3 Technology Obsolescence...... 39 8.4 Embedded Accessibility...... 39 8.5 Accessibility & Disabilities...... 39 9 Accessibility – Key Technologies for Consideration...... 42 9.1 Personalisation and Customisation...... 42 9.2 Intelligent Software Agents...... 43 9.3 Non-functional Requirements...... 43 10 Quick-Win Recommendations...... 45 10.1 Cultural...... 45 10.2 Technology...... 47 10.3 Service Delivery...... 50 11 Longer Term Recommendations...... 53 11.1 Collaborative Innovation Fund...... 53 11.2 Evaluation Framework...... 53 11.3 Centre of Excellence...... 53 11.4 Adopt a wholesale-retail view of government...... 54

2 11.5 Apply ‘Creative Commons’ thinking to government information...... 57 11.6 Study drivers of demand & costs...... 57 11.7 Match efficiency & effectiveness with efficacy...... 57 11.8 Embrace the empathic web...... 57 11.9 Beyond SEO...... 58 12 Proposed Approach to Measuring Success and Outcomes...... 59 13 Questions for Further Exploration...... 60 14 Select Bibliography...... 61 14.1 Reports...... 61 14.2 Books...... 61 14.3 Papers...... 61 14.4 Government Publications...... 62

3 1 Executive Summary

The desirability of publishing Commonwealth government information and content online, and making government services accessible through digital channels, was first mooted as early as the mid-1990s. A sequence of policy initiatives and strategy statements emphasised several desirable outcomes, including:

 Developing more effective and efficient methods for Commonwealth government service delivery;  Providing services that are more citizen-focused; and  Reducing transaction costs associated with accessing and delivering Commonwealth government services. The ‘vision splendid’ was one of achieving a service delivery model that brought the Commonwealth government closer to citizens and business by providing them with faster, more relevant and more effective and efficient services. It was recognised that modern government structures had become too unwieldy, with the result that, in many instances, the delivery onus had shifted to citizens and business to “obtain” services, rather than remain with the government to “deliver” services. A digital service delivery model would, it was believed, provide a platform for transforming the mechanics of government service delivery. The level and range of benefits available to government, citizens and business alike were well understood. From a citizen’s perspective, it would ameliorate the growing sense of frustration and alienation that arose from difficulties finding information about and accessing government services. Repeated efforts in overcoming service discoverability and accessibility challenges represented a considerable waste of citizens’ valuable and scarce time. From a business and industry perspective, a poor and inefficient service delivery environment resulted in lost competitiveness and employee productivity, with a consequent negative effect on revenue and profitability. In extreme cases, it led many businesses to consider shifting activities offshore or cancelling them. At the Commonwealth government level, poor service discoverability and accessibility led to inefficient service delivery, lost employee productivity and wasted expenditure from poorly targeted or underutilised services. Government services are indeed worthless without access, and the government committed itself to achieving the high levels of service that individuals had come to expect in their dealings with the private sector. Unfortunately, the experience of the past decade has not lived up to those early visions, despite the firm and on-going commitment of respective governments. Notwithstanding the Internet being the most frequently used channel for government interaction among a broad cross-section of the population, the recent Gershon Review1 observed that the Commonwealth government has not been able to establish a workable approach to providing efficient and effective delivery of joined-up services to citizens and business. Beyond the findings made by the Gershon Review, including the lack of frameworks for setting priorities for ICT investment at a whole-of-government level and the poor visibility of ICT activities within government organisations, there are a range of further factors that have constrained action in addressing service discoverability and accessibility problems, including:

1 Review of the Australian Government’s Use of Information & Communication Technology (Sir Peter Gershon, 2008)

4  Online is still largely regarded as a non-core service channel, leading to poor executive support for digital channel service delivery efforts and an under-investment in key enabling skill sets and other resources;  Government language is frequently impenetrable as a result of excessive use of jargon and acronyms, making government services effectively inaccessible to citizens and business;  The vast majority of Australians simply don’t understand the mechanics of government, yet having a working knowledge of the structure of government is all but a pre-requisite for accessing services given the way the current service delivery model is structured; and  Many individuals lack sophisticated online search skills, an issue that is compounded by the way in which search technologies are deployed across Commonwealth government web sites, and the types of approaches to web site structure, design and user experience adopted by the government. Each of these factors, and the many others outlined in this report that contribute to the poor discoverability and accessibility of digital government services, their impacts and the benefits and other gains available to the Commonwealth government in addressing them, have been well known for quite some time. It is clear that governments of all persuasions both in Australia and abroad understand the problem. What is less clear, however, is why the Commonwealth government has been unable to address it. There would appear that little momentum exists behind service discoverability and accessibility initiatives, and little “political will” to make a serious effort to address them at the Executive level of government. Achieving a workable and sustainable solution to the various discoverability and accessibility challenges outlined in this report must commence at, and be committed to, at a whole-of-government level. As this report articulates, there are people, process and technology enhancements that can be brought to bear to improve the level of discoverability and accessibility of digital government services. Addressing these aspects alone will almost certainly deliver substantial improvements. However, capturing all possible improvements and benefits from any initiative, and sustaining those improvements and benefits, requires a commitment to addressing cultural issues as well. The conclusions and recommendations presented in this report are outlined in detail in Sections 10 and 11. Suggestions for how the successes of any initiatives taken in response to these recommendations might be measured are presented in Section 12. Questions for further investigation and consideration are suggested in Section 13.

1.1 Priority Recommendations – Cultural

1.1.1 Commit to embracing digital as a “core” channel Ambitious, future-facing statements of intent are no longer adequate. It is imperative that the Commonwealth government publicly commit to adopting a citizen-centric focus to service delivery, with digital channels providing the inner core of the service delivery model. 1.1.2 Impose a “non-proliferation” ban for new web sites Achieving significant gains in the discoverability and accessibility of digital government services will only be possible if the Commonwealth government implements a web site rationalisation plan with clear targets for gradually agglomerating government information, content and services into a small number of sites, and progressively decommissioning superfluous sites. An important first step would be implementing a freeze on new web site deployments until minimum rationalisation targets are met. 1.1.3 Prioritise the improvement and acquisition of enabling skills A whole-of-government initiative should be launched immediately, focussed upon improving the digital literacy of current government employees, especially those senior and executive staff best positioned to transform their organisations to embrace and deliver the full benefits of citizen-centric digital service delivery.

5 Furthermore, government departments and agencies should be encouraged to recruit specific skill sets and knowledge required to close any identified skills gap that would impede the transition to a citizen-centric digital service delivery model. 1.1.4 Ensure compliance with Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0 The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) now recommends that organisations use the new Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG 2.0). The Commonwealth government should, similarly, require that all government organisations adopt and comply with these new guidelines. It is further recommended that these guidelines be applied retrospectively. That is, that all government organisations immediately review current digital services to ensure compliance with the newer requirements of the guidelines. The previous guidelines (WCAG 1.0) were published in 1999. Although these earlier guidelines are currently mandated for government organisations, they do not provide adequate guidance for a range of technical and accessibility issues that have emerged with newer Web technologies and services.

1.2 Priority Recommendations – Technology

1.2.1 Develop a whole-of-government search strategy The objective of a whole-of-government search strategy is to provide a long-term vision with clear and actionable goals, under which Commonwealth government organisations can coordinate their search capability planning and implementation efforts. To assist these organisations with their search capability planning and management initiatives, and specifically to support increased service discoverability and accessibility, the strategy should articulate the manner in which service discoverability and accessibility will be measured, and articulate both a best practices framework for technology selection and implementation, and service capability benchmarks. 1.2.2 Develop an interim plan for addressing search deficiencies Developing and implementing a whole-of-government search strategy is likely to be a 2-3 year undertaking. In the interim, there are a range of tactical search improvement initiatives that can be implemented to achieve quick discoverability and accessibility wins. 1.2.3 Enforce standardised metadata policies Standardised metadata polices, and their rigorous application, are key to enhancing discoverability and accessibility. Unless and until the Commonwealth government starts enforcing appropriate business practices for the creation and maintenance of metadata across all government organisations, then the discoverability and accessibility of digital government services will remain an issue. It is recommended that a specific government agency, such as AGIMO, or the Auditor General (supported by the Australian National Audit Office), be charged with the responsibility for ensuring compliance with the AGLS metadata standard. 1.2.4 Develop a discoverability and accessibility technology roadmap There is a staggering array of technology options for addressing the range of issues, opportunities and challenges presented in attempting to improve the discoverability and accessibility of digital government services. Rather than assume that each government organisation has the requisite skills, knowledge and resources (including budget) to adequately investigate, assess and compare these technology options, the Commonwealth government should prepare a technology roadmap for distribution to all government organisations (and other stakeholders).

6 1.3 Priority Recommendations – Service Delivery

1.3.1 Define a customer experience vision Achieving lasting change in any organisation starts with articulating a clear, shared vision that orients every individual within the organisation to a new, common direction. The vision must clearly distinguish the future from the past, and create a sense of urgency within the organisation for embracing and achieving real change. The Commonwealth government should define its Customer Experience Vision for the delivery of services across all delivery channels. Its purpose should be to reinforce and institutionalise not just the reasons for changing the service delivery model, but how that change will be effected. 1.3.2 Develop firm service delivery KPIs and publish results All government organisation service delivery KPIs should be reviewed to ensure they are in alignment with stated digital service delivery objectives. An integral component of these revised KPIs should be customer satisfaction metrics, covering typical customer satisfaction dimensions, including service relevance, accessibility, choice and convenience. In addition, the Commonwealth government should commit to publicly publishing the results of a regular (quarterly) analysis of service delivery KPI performance for each department and agency. 1.3.3 Conduct ‘Mystery Shopper’ Analysis The Commonwealth government should commission regular “mystery shopper” research across all of its public-facing web sites to measure service quality, and to gain specific feedback and insights into the discoverability and accessibility of individual sites.

1.4 Longer Term Recommendations

1.4.1 Collaborative Innovation Fund A collaborative innovation fund for implementing new digital service delivery capabilities should be established. The structure of the fund should be such that it can only be accessed via an application process that requires each project to have multiple government organisations as project supporters and participants. 1.4.2 Evaluation Framework An appropriate benefits realisation and evaluation framework should be developed and implemented to enable all relevant stakeholders to identify, optimise and track the expected benefits from changes in service delivery to ensure that strategic discoverability and accessibility objectives are achieved. 1.4.3 Centre of Excellence The Commonwealth government should establish a Centre of Excellence with a single-minded focus on supporting initiatives to enhance digital service delivery. The Centre of Excellence should be provided with sufficient resources and authority to effectively “institutionalise” a citizen-centric service delivery model, and promote innovative digital service delivery thinking and solutions across the entire Commonwealth public service. 1.4.4 Adopt a Wholesale-Retail View of Government Enabling a citizen-centric service delivery model requires that the Commonwealth government provides only a single ‘interface’ to service access (in the digital realm, a single portal) regardless of what department or agency actually delivers the service. Turning this vision for a single point of contact into reality requires a completely different approach to the manner in which the Commonwealth government conducts business internally and with its suppliers. To that

7 end, the Commonwealth government should embrace a wholesale-retail approach to government service delivery at the core of its service delivery model.

8 2 Background & Introduction

In January 1996, the then Deputy Prime Minister, Kim Beazley, launched the Framework & Strategies for information technology in the Commonwealth of Australia - Exposure Draft, which outlined a proposed framework for future use of information technology within the Commonwealth Government. The document discussed initiatives for IT use in internal Government processes as well as interaction with the public via “on-line networks”. Following a change of government, the Office of Government Information Technology (OGIT) and the Government Internet Committee were established in early 1997. The OGIT soon prescribed requirements in relation to how Commonwealth information should be published on the Internet. These requirements were reiterated by the Investing for Growth statement issued by then Prime Minister, John Howard, in December 1997, which announced the Commonwealth Government's commitment to putting all appropriate Government services online by 2001. This commitment was translated into the Government Online strategy, which had three broad aims:

 To find more effective and efficient methods for delivering government services online;  To provide services that are more citizen-focused and reduced citizens’ and business’ “transaction costs” (that is, time and effort in obtaining access to services); and  To facilitate faster uptake of the (then) fledgling electronic commerce in Australia by pioneering government use of electronic commerce. In the ensuing three years, there were significant efforts to convert government information and services into a format suitable for deployment online. In these early years of the Internet, there was little maturity in terms of knowledge of Internet technologies and appropriate mechanisms for translating what were often sophisticated service models into digital-enabled capabilities. The National Office of the Information Economy (NOIE, also established in 1997) reported in March, 2001, that some 17% of Commonwealth agencies surveyed had all appropriate services online, with 93% anticipating having all appropriate services online by the end of 20012. Unfortunately, the haste with which many government departments and agencies readied their content and services for online deployment resulted in an uncoordinated ‘explosion’ of public-facing web sites, with disjointed navigation and search capabilities. There was little time for collaboration between departments, for taking a more citizen-centric viewpoint, or for agencies to ensure that complementary services were delivered to common constituent bases. In hindsight, a view could be taken that the Government Online program of work proceeded without a firm understanding of the importance of a whole-of-government service delivery approach or strategy. These early online initiatives revealed few attempts to capture the benefits available in using digital channels to span departmental and organisational boundaries, despite a clear injunction in the Government Online Strategy that such opportunities be pursued3: The opportunity exists to package together information and services, which would otherwise be delivered separately-where several services are closely related; where more than one service needs to be utilised when, for example, importing goods; and where information on a particular subject needs to be acquired from more than one agency. ... The Government is committed to identifying additional opportunities for cross-agency online initiatives, through agencies:

2 Government Online: Online Survey Round 3 Results – March 2001. 3 Government Online Strategy (April 2000), Strategic Priority #7

9  identifying specific areas with potential for joint initiatives with other agencies;  developing a number of trials of cross-agency initiatives;  consulting with other agencies when new services are to be launched; and  facilitating research and information sharing on the technological approaches appropriate to implementing cross-agency initiatives. The Government Online strategy was followed by the Better Services, Better Government e-government strategy in November 2002, which sought to build on initial efforts, and: “...move from placing government information and services online to more comprehensive and integrated application of new technologies to government information, service delivery and administration.” The momentum and achievements obtained under this strategy were further bolstered by the 2006 e- Government Strategy, Responsive Government: A New Service Agenda, which articulated a number of actions centred on meeting the needs of citizens and business, to be addressed between 2006-2008, including:

 Develop a consistent and coordinated approach by agencies to measuring the use of and satisfaction with their services.  Develop australia.gov.au as the principal Australian Government entry point, including a consolidated entry point to government online engagement initiatives.  Review and consolidate the number of the government’s own websites.  Promote the government’s service delivery options more prominently.  Introduce access to government services through selected non-government providers.

2.1 Present Day

The recent Gershon Review (August 2008) pointedly noted the “weak governance of pan-government issues related to ICT” which led to “significant fragmentation and duplication” and a “lack of standardisation in common business processes across government”. While the Review’s purview was not restricted to Commonwealth government web sites, neither the findings nor tenor of the final Report suggest the government’s approach to web sites and service delivery via digital channels generally were materially different to the overall approach to ICT. The Report outlined a number of key findings, including:

 There are very few frameworks in place at the whole-of-government level for setting priorities for ICT investment across portfolios;  There is no formal process by which agencies can obtain information on ICT activities in other agencies before investing in ICT;  There was no formal common method of assessing agency capability to commission, manage and realise benefits from ICT-enabled projects;  There are no common metrics for measuring ICT efficiency or the effectiveness of an agency’s ICT spend; and  There are significant variations in costs across agencies.4 The review subsequently found that:

4 The report noted that its survey of government agencies uncovered “611 reported websites (excluding Defence), with costs ranging from $10,000 to $1.5 million per website”, representing a total expenditure in 2007-2008 of approximately $80 million.

10 “the totality of these issues ultimately hinders the ability of the Government to provide efficient and effective joined-up ICT-enabled services to citizens and businesses.” Nonetheless, there was a unanimous view across all agencies involved in the review that ICT would continue to play a key and increasingly important role in:

 Meeting the rising expectations of citizens and government;  Delivering more efficient and effective services and operations; and  Managing the increasing complexity in the regulatory, business and policy environments. While not explicitly raised in the Gershon Review, consultation with a number of key stakeholders in the current project suggests that an underlying cause of this lack of a coherent approach to digital service delivery is the way heads of departments are held accountable for budget expenditures under the Financial Management and Accountability Act (1997) (“FMA Act”), which provides the framework for the proper management of public money by the Executive arm of the Commonwealth. Under the FMA Act, the agency Chief Executive (who is generally also an agency head for the purposes of the Public Service Act (1999)) must manage the affairs of the agency in a way that promotes the efficient, effective and ethical use of the Commonwealth resources. Ultimately, it is the agency Chief Executive (and the relevant Minister) who is responsible for any misapplication of Commonwealth resources, including agency funds. Nowhere does the FMA Act suggest, recommend or encourage cross-agency collaboration in the use of Commonwealth resources and funding. Indeed, the direct imposition of personal responsibility upon the agency Chief Executive would militate against such collaboration. It is clearly in the personal interest of all agency Chief Executives to have the utmost control over agency spending decisions and agency project outcomes, which may not be achievable in the context of collaborative efforts. In short, the nature and focus of these accountability provisions would appear to hinder the adoption of a citizen-centric viewpoint over a more government-centric view.

2.2 Australians’ Use of e-Government Services

Since 2004-5, AGIMO has conducted an annual survey canvassing Australians' use and satisfaction with e- government services provided through both the Internet and telephone.

The most recent survey was conducted in 20085, and it confirmed the trend detected in earlier surveys that use of the internet to contact government is continuing to grow, while contact in person is continuing to decline, as the following chart attests:

5 Interacting with Government - Australians' use and satisfaction with e-government services (2008)

11 Figure 1 - Changes in method of contacting government—by service delivery channel

The Internet is the most frequently used channel for contacting government among those aged 44 or younger. Two in five people 24 or younger and just under half of those aged 25 to 44 used the Internet for their most recent contact with government. Internet use for government contact among those aged 45 to 64 declines to just under two in five and there is a marked drop in Internet use for these purposes among those 65 or older.

The AGIMO survey also found that the Commonwealth government is the most frequently accessed level of government (42% of online contacts), with state and territory (26%) and local government (29%) having similar levels of contact.

The following chart provides a high-level overview of the types of government services most accessed via the web channel:

Figure 2 - Most common services used in most recent contact with government

2.3 Definitions

Before we explore how the Commonwealth government might improve the discoverability and accessibility of digital government services, it would be useful to provide definitions for those terms.

i. Discoverability – In the current context, discoverability refers to the quality of being discoverable. That is, the ease with which a government service can be located and accessed, or information ascertained or found. ii. Accessibility - In the current context, accessibility refers to the quality of being at hand when needed. That is, whether a government service is easy to access or whether a government agency or department is easy to approach and deal with. Approachability of the information includes the ability to obtain the information in a form understandable by the viewer.

12 3 Overview of the main contributing factors

While there are many contributing factors to the problem of poor discoverability and accessibility of government information, content and services (hereafter referred to collectively as “government services”), they fall within two broad categories:

(a) Problems locating all relevant services – Given the myriad types and forms of government services available across digital channels, finding all that are relevant to a particular need, interaction or transaction is by no means straightforward. This is especially true if all of the cues and pointers required to understand what is available, where it is located and how it may be interacted with are not visible on the digital channels.

(b) Problems understanding the context in which content and services are being accessed – A key barrier to accessing relevant services is the failure to present them in a contextually relevant manner; that is, a manner conducive to immediate consumption or application to the issue or transaction at hand. This challenge is particularly acute when the presentation of services assumes a certain level of knowledge and understanding of either government structures or service delivery mechanisms in general, or the process through which access to a specific government service is granted. Solving the challenges of discoverability and accessibility of digital government services requires adopting solutions that enable citizens and businesses to identify and retrieve relevant services in a context that provides an intuitive interaction between the individual and the service. Examples of these contributing factors can be found in the following areas:

3.1 Citizens do not know how government is structured

Citizens should not be required to know how government is structured as a pre-condition to accessing government services. The internal mechanics of government, comprising as it does both the ‘physical’ structure of government – including the various tiers of government, ministerial portfolios, and the diffusion of responsibility between government layers, ministries and departments – and the ‘administrative’ structure – budgetary, expenditure, operational and administrative controls laid down by departmental rules and procedures – are, quite simply, beyond the purview of the vast majority of citizens. Importantly, in a modern democracy such as exists in Australia, a coherent view of government should not be a mandatory requirement for gaining access to government and the services it provides. Good governance, that is, governance that enables constituents’ needs and aspirations to be fulfilled effectively and efficiently, depends on public institutions that are designed and run to enable this outcome. An increased focus on discoverability and accessibility is desirable precisely because it overcomes any difficulties arising from this lack of knowledge. The australia.gov.au portal has made significant steps towards improving the discoverability and accessibility of Commonwealth government services. However, as the offering stands today, it still requires a rudimentary understanding of the structure of government to make effective use of the site.

3.2 Online search and discovery skills are varied

As with most IT-centric skills, the levels of web familiarity and online search effectiveness skills varies throughout the population.

13 While many (if not all) users of online government services will be familiar with the basic features of the web and web browsers in general, most lack sophisticated search skills. Certainly, they will lack familiarity with some of the more advanced search options now available with popular Search Engines (such as Google and Bing), including Boolean operators used to refine search parameters. Importantly, it is very unlikely the average user will make an effort to improve their knowledge and awareness of search skills simply to allow them greater access to government services as the only reward. A related issue is the fact that many search tasks are undertaken soon after an individual becomes aware of a need, and as such tend to be exploratory and imprecise. Consequently, the planning that precedes the search activity (if done at all) tends to be vague, which leads to unstructured and generic search terms and search phrase selections6. Vague, generic and unstructured searches will usually result in unhelpful and confusing search outcomes that:

(a) Turn up too many matching web pages, which few individuals have the time to review in detail; (b) Turn up too many irrelevant matches, which creates disillusionment and may force individuals to give up their search; and (c) May miss relevant sites and services. These difficulties are introduced into an environment where citizens are already under the strain of trying to locate information to solve often complex problems - a process made harder due to their poor understanding of government’s structure and mechanics, as highlighted earlier.

3.3 Search is treated as application-, service- or department-/agency- specific

Even if a short-term solution can be found to overcome citizens’ poor search skills and lack of keyword specificity, it is unlikely to provide a workable solution to increasing the discoverability of government services. This is because most government sites have implemented search tools at either the application level (that is, search within a specific online application, such as the ABN look up service on the business.gov.au site), the service level (that is, search within the boundaries of a specific online service deployment) or at a department or agency level (that is, search within the boundaries of a specific department or agency web site). This approach creates silos of information and services, and makes it very difficult for constituents to achieve whole-of-government visibility of content and services related to their search tasks – even where they are highly proficient in using search tools. If individuals ignore the specific search tools provided with the government application, service area or agency, and use a generic commercial search engine, then the results may be of the generic, diffuse nature mentioned in Section 3.2. Citizens and business are “damned if they do, and damned if they don’t” know the way that government services are structured.

3.4 Approaches to site structure, design and user experience are varied

In the private sector, it is generally acknowledged that a range of benefits can be achieved by adopting a consistent approach to the design of the ‘presentation layer’ of a web site (that is, the user interface components and visual design elements) and ensuring that the underlying site information architecture is ‘fit for purpose’.

6 Anecdotally at least, a review of various search tend data available online (e.g. Google Trends - www.google.com/trends/hottrends) would indicate that many search queries lack formal structures and do not make use of advanced search capabilities.

14 These benefits include:

 Improved quality – A more user-friendly and usable web site increases the end-user’s perception of service quality.  Delighted users – Highly usable web sites create delighted users and user organisations.  Increased usage – Higher perceived quality and delighted users results in higher and more frequent usage, with corresponding benefits (including increased loyalty, cost and process efficiencies and service delivery effectiveness).  Positive changes in user behaviour – Well designed sites can be very effective in encouraging desirable user behaviour by simplifying the desired behavioural path while incorporating subtle frictions into less desirable paths. An example of how user behaviour can be modified is the presentation of businesses contact options. Many businesses influence customers’ choice of contact channels (such as email, interactive chat, call centre and retail) by promoting certain options over others.  Increased productivity – Easier to use web sites enable greater productivity among users (both external and internal) and reduce errors.  Decreased implementation costs – Sites that are designed with a ‘fitness for purpose’ mindset generally achieve lower implementation costs (by avoiding expensive, last-minute design changes) and reduced maintenance and support costs (by getting it right the first time). While there is undoubtedly an understanding of these benefits within the service delivery ‘front line’, the level of awareness, and therefore support, among senior executives appears considerably lower. While these exists prescribed standards7 for the visual design of government web sites, there are considerable variations in site design, structure and user experience approaches. As a result, while sites may be able to achieve some or all of the above benefits at the department and agency level, few if any can be achieved at a whole-of-government level.

3.5 Government language is frequently impenetrable

Unless and until government web sites and the services offered by, or described within them, talk to citizens in language they understand, then these sites and services will effectively remain inaccessible to all but the most determined. Citizens and business have long complained about difficulties in engaging with government as a result of the latter’s adoption of impenetrable jargon, phrases and acronyms. While ‘government-ese’ makes communication difficult at a human-to-human level, the challenges are significantly magnified within digital channels, as citizens lack the ability to ask explanatory questions or otherwise tap into both verbal and non-verbal cues when attempting to make sense of unclear language. Embracing plain language reduces the cognitive load associated with accessing and understanding government web sites, and increases the efficiency with which information can be communicated. At the technology layer, the kinds of specialised jargon adopted by government makes it difficult for Search Engines and similar tools to effectively match government services to the types of key words that laypeople would use to describe or locate those services. It also makes it difficult for laypeople to understand the services and resources available to them even should they discover a relevant government site as a starting point.

7 A Web publishing guide, covering issues such as visual design and branding, can be found at http://webpublishing.agimo.gov.au

15 3.6 Web is largely still regarded as a non-core service channel

While the Commonwealth government moved quite early to establish a comprehensive online presence, and has invested significant sums in maintaining and extending that presence, it would appear – to the outsider at least – that the Web and other digital mediums remain in the category of ‘non-core’ service channels. Discussions with various stakeholders during this project revealed that a lack of executive support for efforts to address digital channel service delivery issues was a common complaint. Many believe that the manner in which digital channels are being used has added to departmental and agency workloads not reduced it. It appears that senior executives and frontline staff alike are too busy dealing with ‘business as usual’ service delivery requirements of digital channels to think more strategically about their potential, or about how they might be better integrated with more traditional channels. Existing web efforts are largely fragmented and poorly co-ordinated. While a number of departments and agencies have demonstrably sound Web governance capabilities, the sheer proliferation of Commonwealth government web sites in recent years makes it impossible for even the most rigorous application of governance policies to avoid problems associated with fragmentation and poor co-ordination. It appears that government has under-invested in the skill sets and capabilities required to maintain an effective online presence and service delivery capability, and as a result department and agency teams are poorly resourced, and many suffer from a lack of focus and emphasis on online service delivery.

16 4 Effects of Poor Discoverability & Accessibility

Government services are worthless without access. The Interacting with Government survey revealed that 25% of surveyed Internet users had tried unsuccessfully to find government information or services online. Of those who experienced these difficulties:

 43% reported that the site(s) visited did not contain the information they were looking for;  28% reported the site was too difficult to use or understand;  11% indicated they didn’t really know where to start looking;  7% couldn’t determine which was the right department or agency to approach; and  3% were just too overwhelmed by the sheer number of government sites that may hold the answer. The results of poor service discoverability and accessibility differ across different stakeholder groups. However, common to all is the acknowledgement that it impedes government interaction, reduces satisfaction levels and creates artificial and unnecessary barriers to service delivery.

4.1 On Citizens

What effect does poor or mismatched discoverability and accessibility expectations have on the attitudes and behaviours of citizens that interact with online government services? Chiefly they consist of:

 Frustration and alienation – Difficulties finding information about government services, poor presentation of that information (including poor cues or context), and difficulties in accessing services creates frustration which may, over time, generate the belief that the government does not offer, or does not want to offer, these services.  Wasted time – Repeated efforts overcoming challenges in identifying, locating and consuming digital government services represent a considerable waste of time.  Increased reliance on less efficient channels – Frustrated attempts at digital self-service will, in most cases, result in citizens seeking a solution via less efficient channels, such as a call centre or a walk-in.  Channel aversion – Repeated unsatisfactory attempts at meeting service requirements via the online channel will establish an aversion mindset that actively discourages a return to the service if changes are made.  Experience-curve constraints – A lack of a consistent approach to the design and user interface of government sites means that stakeholders are forced to learn and remember many different interfaces, and switch between them to achieve different outcomes, with the result that few stakeholders are able to achieve experience-curve efficiencies in accessing government services via digital channels.  Transfer of delivery onus – Poor discoverability and accessibility serves, in effect, to shift the onus to citizens to “obtain” services, rather than remain with the government to “deliver” services.  Disproportionate demand – Where poor discoverability and accessibility limits the scope of citizen awareness of or access to services, it often means those departments that do improve discoverability and accessibility become a focal point of activity, with the result that they may buckle under demand from specific segments of the community.

17 4.2 On Business & Industry

Associated negatives effects downstream from the agencies and departments can be encountered by businesses and industry segments that access government services as part of their operations. Among these are:

 Lost competitiveness – Delays in accessing digital government services, including the expense of additional efforts required to locate services can result in lost competitiveness for Australian businesses and industry sectors.  Lost employee productivity – The increased time and effort burden upon individual employees when attempting to find and access digital government services directly impact employee productivity.  Decreased revenue – Reduced competitiveness and employee productivity have a direct, negative impact on business revenue.  Increased preference for offshore investment – Difficulties in interacting with government agencies and departments can introduce project delays and risks of a sufficient nature to warrant considering either cancelling a project or moving it offshore.

4.3 On Government

Direct effects on the operation and effectiveness of government service delivery can be countered as:

 Inefficient delivery of programs and services – Poor discoverability and accessibility creates inefficiency in the delivery of programs and services.  Lost employee productivity – Poor discoverability and accessibility often results in increased transaction volumes on less efficient service delivery channels, with the result that employees are less productive or that more employees are required to meet delivery obligations than would otherwise be the case.  Wasted expenditure – If stakeholders are unaware of or unable to access services, then government is unable to extract the full benefits from its investment in the underlying services.

18 5 Potential Benefits if Issues are Solved

In addition to addressing the direct and indirect cost issues outlined in the preceding section, there is a range of potential benefits for all stakeholders in solving the problems inherent in, and created by, poor discoverability and accessibility of digital government services, including:

 “Closer” government – Improving usage and uptake of digital government services will bring the Commonwealth government closer to citizens and business by providing them with faster, more effective and efficient services.  Increased use of cost-efficient channels – Service delivery via digital channels is often more cost- effective (both in terms of access and delivery).  Decreased “churn” across service provision channels – Improving stakeholders’ ability to satisfy their service needs in any one channel necessarily reduces churn between service delivery channels in search of a solution.  Ability to offer more and broader services – Designing services for delivery via digital channels, and improving their usage and uptake will create a much broader ‘service footprint’ by removing the ‘tyranny of distance’ that has long constrained service delivery within Australia. As highlighted earlier, there is a clear and growing preference for online interaction with government services. As cost savings are achieved in deploying services electronically, it will enable the provision of further services within the same budget allocation.  Better targeting means reduced waste – When service discoverability is improved, it assists citizens and business to access government services in context; that is, enquirers are presented only with information and services relevant to their particular interests and circumstances, with the result that there is less wastage of resources in both access and delivery.  Intuitive interactions and positive experiences – Improvements to the discoverability of government information and services results in a more intuitive interaction between stakeholders and the content or service being accessed. This, in turn, creates a more positive experience of the government service and of government in general.  Improved reputation of service delivery arms of government – Each discoverability and accessibility enhancement or improvement creates a corresponding improvement in the reputation of the responsible service delivery agency or department.  Channel promotion – An improved service delivery channel capability creates a self-reinforcing loop that sustains the access by allowing citizens to self-promote it as the best way to obtain the specific service being offered. The old adage that “if we do a good job – tell your friends, if we do a poor job – tell us to fix it” certainly applies.  Better service delivery maintenance when government portfolio changes occur – As the structure of government changes, there may be a delay in stakeholder awareness of these changes. Enhancing discoverability will reduce the impact this lack of awareness has on service accessibility. Services that are inherently linked to the machinery of government are fragile when changes in the machinery occur. Importantly, addressing discoverability and accessibility issues is a prerequisite for achieving the emergent “Gov 2.0” model for delivering the functions of government.

19 Whole-of-government approach required for sustainable change

All of the factors contributing to the poor discoverability and accessibility of digital government services, their impacts and the benefits and other gains available in addressing these issues have been well known for quite some time. Indeed, a number of the strategy documents, policies and other reports cited herein were prepared more than a decade ago. Policies and guidelines (some mandatory) have been published by organisations like the Australian Government Information Management Office and its predecessors over the same time period. Clearly, then, governments of all persuasions both in Australia and abroad understand the problem. What is less clear, however, is why government has been unable to address it. In discussions with a number of stakeholders, there was a general sense that there is very little momentum behind these kinds of initiatives at the departmental and agency level, and little “political will” to make a serious effort to address them at the Executive level of government. Poor department- and agency-level commitment is perhaps understandable. Efforts to resource the kinds of initiatives outlined in this report must invariably compete with other, equally important challenges, in an environment when budgets are necessarily constrained. It would be courageous indeed for senior management within a single agency or department to commit firm resources to addressing discoverability and accessibility where other government organisations are yet to commit to such a move. In addition to the solution definition, technology selection, procurement, governance and other project risks associated with moving independently of other government organisations, it could lead to prickly questions about whether funds were being committed prematurely or whether adequate efforts at collaboration or consensus building were made. Even where individual government organisations could achieve incremental improvements within their spheres of influence, those improvements would likely become lost in the miasma of other, poorly designed, implemented and maintained digital government services. Essentially, the clear voice would be drowned out by the noise around it. Achieving a workable and sustainable solution to discoverability and accessibility challenges, then, must commence at, and be committed to, at a whole-of-government level. As this report articulates, there are people, process and technology enhancements that can be brought to bear within any such initiative. Addressing these aspects alone will almost certainly deliver substantial improvements. However, capturing all possible improvements and benefits from any initiative, and sustaining those improvements and benefits, requires a commitment to addressing cultural issues as well. A key indicator of underlying cultural issues is the fact that the level of importance attributed to addressing discoverability and accessibility issues appear to wax and wane – further evidenced by the absence of meaningful change over the past decade despite high awareness of the need for change. As one stakeholder described it, discoverability and accessibility is a “Cinderella issue”, neglected in favour of other priorities that may arise from time to time. Certainly it is an issue that is broadly recognised as one requiring more attention than it is given, but there is little will to bring it to the forefront and addressed in a meaningful and comprehensive fashion.

20 Kotter’s 8-Step Transformational Change Model

Professor John Kotter has developed an 8-step change model for achieving the kind of organisational transformation required for step-change discoverability and accessibility improvement:

1. Establish a sense of urgency – All organisational stakeholders, from CEOs of government organisation to front-line delivery staff, should fully appreciate the urgency with which change must be achieved. They need to be primed to break free of “business as usual” behaviour and be ready to get behind the initiatives.

2. Create a guiding coalition – Put the right people in the right roles to effect change. It is not enough that these individuals be empowered to drive change. They must also have the team building and people skills necessary to influence others to accept and act upon the need for change.

3. Develop a vision and strategy – The guiding coalition of senior stakeholders need to create a vision for achieving change, supported with firm strategies that will guide actions at each stage of change. In additional to addressing quantitative issues – benefits, ROI, service improvements metrics etc. – the vision and strategy components must address the creative and emotional components of the vision.

4. Communicate the change vision – Effecting change requires more than a policy statement. Presentations, workshops, brainstorming sessions and even one-on-one meetings need to be held throughout all Commonwealth government organisations so that as many people as possible are exposed to the vision, as frequently as is necessary to ensure they achieve absolute clarity around what is required, and what their expected contribution will be.

5. Empower broad-based action – Give people the power to act, and remove obstacles that stop people from acting to implement the vision.

6. Create short-term wins – Identify quick wins that can be achieved in the short-term to energise and build momentum behind the guiding coalition, enlighten the pessimists and defuse any potential efforts by cynics to block action.

7. Consolidate gains and product more change – No matter what obstacles emerge, it is important to remain committed to the vision. Persisting with wave upon wave of change communicates a powerful message that the push for change won’t stop until the vision is fulfilled.

8. Anchor new approaches in the culture – As change occurs at all levels within government organisations, it is important to create supporting structures that ensure this change is institutionalised, thereby becoming the new “business as usual”.

Source: John P Kotter, Leading Change, Harvard Business Press (1996). Preview available at books.google.com.au/books?id=ib9Xzb5eFGQC

21 6 Enhancing the Discoverability of Government Offerings

Citizens and businesses have become accustomed to high levels of customer service in their dealings with the private sector. They have come to expect a similar level of service from government. Yet government service discoverability has often lagged the private sector, which in turn has created barriers to meeting service delivery expectations. The perception of the private sector that is created in the mind of the public is one of cooperation and cohesion – even across different companies that may normally be considered to be in a competitive relationship (look at the way that the large retailers such as Harvey Norman, Clive Peters, Domain etc. ‘bounce’ campaigns one to another). Unfortunately for government – which is not generally in a competitive relationship – the perception is one of dissolution and fragmentation. Achieving dramatic improvements to the discoverability of digital government services requires a coordinated effort to address a range of issues:

6.1 Improved Search Capability

Enhancing digital service discoverability starts with improvements in the underlying system that supports stakeholders in their efforts to locate any and all government information, content and services relevant to a given search query (usually measured as “recall”; that is, whether all of the resources relevant to a search query are returned). Given the nature, breadth and scope of current digital service offerings, improving citizens’ search capabilities and outcomes will not be achieved (and likely will never be) through the deployment of a single search technology. Rather, it will require the development of a comprehensive, coherent and whole-of-government search strategy that combines a suite of search tools and technologies in an orchestrated and integrated fashion to achieve optimal recall. The objective of this integrated approach to search is to deploy a solution capable of:

 Providing a single but unified view of all relevant government information, content and services;  Spanning all public-facing digital resources (including application-, service- and site-specific resources);  Identifying all public-facing digital resources regardless of the search starting point or the resource owner (i.e. domain agnostic); and  Identifying relevant government resources even in the absence of a direct key word match or where the user has not asked the “right question”; and  Providing a “natural language” capability that allows individuals to ask simple questions via the search interface using everyday language and phrasing. This is particularly important if the individual has nominated that they use a language other than English. The core focus of improvement efforts should be implementing appropriate search tools and technologies that remove the onus from the individual of knowing where to search or what specifically to search for. The underlying search technologies and toolsets, and process via which individuals interact with them, should provide for the reliable, consistent and complete retrieval of digital resources based on user requirements. As mentioned earlier, the australia.gov.au site, and in particular, its search application spanning Commonwealth, State, Territory and Local government web sites, is an important first step in delivering an improved search capability.

22 However, its search capability is significantly impeded as a result of the challenges inherent in providing such broad search coverage. Addressing the ‘search problem’ will require a coordinated approach to evolving both the australia.gov.au search capability and the search capabilities of each of the sites it covers.

6.2 Improved Precision and Contextual Relevance

Improved search capability does not, in and of itself, result in improved discoverability. While it is certainly a fundamental component of improved discoverability, it is only part of a much larger solution. Indeed, increasing citizens’ search recall can actually create detrimental outcomes. Citizens may quickly become overwhelmed by the wealth of disparate and widely dispersed resources identified (or recalled) as a result of their search. This ‘hyperchoice’ environment may make them unable to make effective or informed choices (choice paralysis). Equally, dramatically increased search outcomes may create a corresponding increase in the amount of time and effort required on the part of the individual to sift through the search results and distinguish between relevant and irrelevant results. Accordingly, along with enhanced search recall, there needs to be a corresponding improvement in the precision of search results, so that only those digital resources relevant to the user’s needs or the context of their search focus are presented. Precision can be measured in simplistic, technical terms, such as whether the matched resources contained one or more of the key words used in the search query. However, this approach fails to take into account the range of significant contextual factors citizens may employ when determining the actual relevance of specific resources to their particular, real-life situation or service need. As such, the search capability must be augmented with technologies and toolsets capable of discerning:

 Topical or subject relevance – Whether the subject or topic expressed in a search query matches the subject or topic addressed in the recalled resources (that is, whether they are about the same thing the individual was seeking).  Cognitive relevance – Whether the recalled resources meet the individual’s knowledge or cognitive need (that is, whether they offer sufficient ‘informativeness’ and information quality to tell the individual what they needed to know).  Situational relevance – Whether the recalled resources address the situation, task or problem at hand (that is, whether the resources help the individual’s decision making, provide appropriate information to resolve a problem, or reduce uncertainly about a particular topic or process).  Motivational relevance – Whether the recalled resources address individuals’ intentions, goals or objectives (that is, do they enable the user to accomplish their goal, or achieve a satisfactory end state). Beyond these factors, the usefulness or otherwise of search results may also be influenced by affective factors (emotional state) and physical factors (preparedness to click through results, explore options etc.). Clearly there are technologies and toolsets available today that enable better text analysis and site indexing, key word extraction and matching, and high-level or abstract concept search structures, and which can achieve significant improvements in search precision and the contextual relevance of search outcomes. However, in light of the other factors that must be addressed to achieve true relevance and precision, they can only be a starting point. More accurate key word matches, for example, can both help and hinder the discovery process. Highly relevant pages may not be returned simply because the page’s relevance to the individual’s search query is not adequately documented. Similarly, almost all government pages will incorporate common phrases used in search queries, such as the name of the department, the type of service or information sought (e.g. “registration”, “license”, “fees”) and the means of access (e.g. “application”, “renewal”), which will necessarily generate numerous false-positive matches in the absence of an appropriate filtering mechanism.

23 Once again, it will be necessary to develop a holistic approach to identifying the necessary contextual factors that influence search precision and relevancy and formulate a whole-of-government “relevancy model” that can be incorporated within the search strategy discussed earlier. Due to the complex nature of the corpus of government resources, and the multifaceted contexts within which they may be accessed by various constituent segments, and the several lenses through which individuals assess relevance and precision, it is unlikely that a purely algorithmic solution (from a single or combination of technologies) can be found that achieves acceptable levels of precision and relevance. Accordingly, it will be necessary to augment machine- and algorithmic-oriented search relevancy solutions with ‘social’ or human-powered resource discovery and relevancy ranking/matching tools (such as social bookmarks, user-generated metadata and “folksonomies”). We explore some of the approaches that rely on (or leverage) the collective intelligence of site visitors to elaborate on the relevance of various resources in the next section.

6.3 Improved User Experience

Solving search, recall and precision problems to the satisfaction of citizens and businesses requires that attention also be paid to the experience individuals have when interacting with search and discovery tools. Surprisingly, the basic search user interface has not evolved appreciably in over 10 years – individuals are typically confronted with a search input text box for keyword entry and are provided with a results page with a vertical list of blue hyperlinks. While technology can contribute to greater search efficiency and effectiveness – through, say, the provision of a faster and less error-prone search interface – it cannot completely bridge the gap between effectiveness and efficiency, and user satisfaction. The last component to the equation, then, is the design of the user experience of the search and discovery process. This user experience component is important for three reasons:

i. Search is not the end point or goal, but rather a means to some other end. When an individual is performing a search, they are usually engaged in some larger task. A poor search experience can frustrate the completion of this task or otherwise interrupt the individual’s flow of thought or action. ii. Search is a cognitively intensive task. The component elements of performing a search – identifying possible search terms, entering them and initiating a search, and then reading the text of the results – usually occupy all of the individual’s mental focus at each stage, and distractions associated with a poor search interface can seriously increase cognitive load. iii. Nearly everyone who uses the web uses search, so the interface design must be sufficiently useful, usable and desirable to a wide variety of users of different ages, cultures and backgrounds, and applicable to a wide variety of search needs. User experience is difficult to quantify, as it is comprises elements of both science and art. It has been defined as: Encompass[ing] all aspects of a digital product that users experience directly—and perceive, learn, and use—including its form, behavio[u]r, and content. Learnability, usability, usefulness, and aesthetic appeal are key factors in users’ experience of a product8. User experience design – that is, the process of designing the interface through which users experience a digital service – has been defined as follows: User experience design takes a holistic, multidisciplinary approach to the design of user interfaces for digital products. It integrates interaction design, industrial design, information architecture, visual interface design, user assistance design, and user-cent[re]d design, ensuring coherence and

8 http://www.uxmatters.com/glossary/

24 consistency across all of these design dimensions. User experience design defines a product’s form, behavio[u]r, and content9. The user experience design approach used for more traditional human-computer interfaces, such as with productivity applications like spreadsheets or word processors, tends to use as a starting point an assessment of typical users (or user types) for the application; the primary tasks performed by the user with the application; their ultimate objectives in using the application; and their level of post-task satisfaction. Unfortunately, this more traditional approach to user experience design does not translate well to search and discovery experiences because there is frequently no such thing as a “typical” user, nor typical search tasks. This makes it difficult to effectively study user interactions and their search activities and distil general principles that can be applied to general search scenarios. A key barrier to effective user experience design is the fact that individuals may prefer different approaches to information discovery depending on their search needs or task context, including:

 Query – Where the individual is not completely sure what they are looking for, and wants to see a range of items that match their search criteria.  Find – Where the individual is searching for something very specific.  Browse – Where the individual wants to explore what is available to them.  Structured – Where the individual wants to be led through a series of choices/questions to help narrow the focus of their search.  Guided – Where the individual wants to be led through the information available on a specific topic or subject. Achieving a universally appealing search experience will necessarily require the user experience design process to reflect the types of search approaches that are both suitable for the type of resources incorporated within the search boundaries, and the type(s) of search approaches individuals are likely to want to adopt. In many instances, the final design approach will necessarily involve compromises, and will benefit from multiple iterations based on user feedback and close attention to search behaviours and outcomes. That said, there is a growing body of research into successful search interface design, which has provided a set of established guidelines10 for good user experience designs. These include:

 Offer efficient and informative feedback – In addition to providing the user with feedback on the status of their search (e.g. current progress), it is important to show some results immediately while more complete results are being generated. This is required so that users can determine at the earliest juncture whether they are on the right track. The results themselves should contain sufficient information about each matched document or resource (e.g. title of document, URL, a summary or content snippet), as well as some explanation as to why it was matched, such as visually highlighting matched query terms. Users should be given the option to re-sort results using different ranking criteria (e.g. recency, relevance, publisher, author etc.), and be presented with automatically-generated alternate, related or refined query terms, as well as links to documents and other resources recently or typically accessed by users who used similar search queries (e.g. “Users who searched for these terms, also performed searches using these search terms” or “Users who searched for these terms went on to review these documents and resources”).

9 Ibid. 10 For a good summation of relevant research in this area, see Search User Interfaces, M Hearst, Cambridge University Press (2009). A digital version of this book is available free of charge online at http://searchuserinterfaces.com/book/

25 An emerging search interface refinement is the dynamic generation of suggested query terms while the user types their query. Query suggestions can be tailored to the underlying corpus (e.g. the information, content and services specifically available on the site currently being accessed).

 Balance user control with automated actions – While users generally prefer a predictable interface under their absolute control, this needs to be balanced against service improvements that can be achieved by implementing smart technologies ‘behind the scenes’. Examples include automatic page ranking algorithms (that anticipate user needs and rank matched resources based on one or more criteria) and query transformations (that, for instance, automatically expands abbreviated words and searches for both the abbreviation and expanded words, or applies word stemming, so that the query “license” would automatically match resources associated with “licensing”).

 Reduce short-term memory load – Short-term memory can be a tricky thing, and smart search interfaces include prompts and reminders that either assist short-term memory or alleviate the user’s need to keep track of things. Examples include incorporating text prompts directly in the default input search box to provide users with a quick explanation of what action will result from using that search box. This is particularly useful when the default operation of the search box can be manipulated by toggling a radio button or other choice selector (e.g. a search choice which changes the default search parameter from “Search the entire Australian Taxation Office site” to “Search the e-tax support library”). Another example is providing a visual reference to previous search activity, which simultaneously allows users to revisit previous search results while also keeping track of search queries.

 Reduce errors – It is possible to avoid or reduce empty search results pages by automatically correcting spelling or typing errors, and expanding search terms by automatically supplementing search queries with vocabulary enhancements (in essence, adding additional words commonly used to describe similar concepts or queries as those used in the search query).

 Sweat the small details – Search interfaces must often convey rich and complex information, yet surprisingly it is often the small interface design details that can have a significant impact on user satisfaction. For example, extending the length of the search input box encourages users to type longer search queries, which may improve search recall precision. Similarly, changing the ordering of the summary information displayed for each matching resource can positively influence user comprehension of what is being displayed. Likewise, it has been shown that users experience a form of “banner blindness” when search suggestions or other helpful cues are too far removed from the body of the search results, as users become very focused on scanning the results and may miss efforts to help them improve their search effectiveness.

 Don’t undervalue design aesthetics – It is often the case that the visual design and display elements of search results (such as choices of layout, placement, colour, font selection and size etc.) are left to be decided at the technology layer, rather than designed as part of the user experience or presentation layer according to graphic design principles demonstrated to improve user comprehension, satisfaction and overall impression. Aesthetic design is an important component of usability. Poor design has been shown to affect users’ enjoyment and perception of the ease of use of search tools, and users will likely persevere longer in a search task if the user interface appeals to them.

26 6.4 Citizen-centric View of Government

As highlighted earlier, one of the key foundation requirements for improving the discoverability of digital services is removing the burden from the individual to know how to search and for what to search. It is similarly necessary to relieve the individual of the burden of knowing where to commence their search. As noted, few citizens have a fully formed view of the internal structure and mechanics of government as it relates to the way government works, deploys services, manages internal functions, and serves citizens and business. This lack of clarity is often compounded following minor ministerial portfolio restructures that may happen on an ad hoc basis during the term of a government, and the wholesale restructures that may occur following an election – with their corresponding realignment of departmental or agency responsibilities and areas of oversight. As such, citizens are often at a disadvantage when it comes to discovering relevant government services, as they may not know the correct starting point within government, or within a specific department or agency. A long-term solution to this problem is proposed later in this report. However, an immediate improvement can be made to government service delivery mechanisms across digital channels, and in particular with respect to service discoverability, by shifting the emphasis in service delivery. This shift is from being government- centric – where the model of service delivery reflects the underlying structure of the government, its agencies and the devolution of responsibilities across them – to a more citizen-centric approach, where the needs, interests, and expectations of citizens and other stakeholders are at the centre of the service delivery model. Such an approach addresses a commonly observed government service delivery problem; namely, government’s delivery focus is traditionally ‘transactional’ (and aligned to service supply issues), rather than ‘relationship’ focussed (addressing service demand in the context of the totality of services offered by government). In the UK, the Varney Report (prepared in 2006 by Sir David Varney) noted: The Government historically delivers services through departments. The department might deliver the service directly, through agents or agencies, alone or in cooperation with local government. Each solution is a child of its time and circumstances, with little over-arching view of the Government’s relationship with the citizen. Thus, I have found that departments which provide services focus predominantly not on the citizen, but on an aspect of the citizen called ‘the customer’. This allows the department to focus on the delivery of their service—a transactional relationship. The end result is that the citizen who needs multiple services is left to join up the various islands of service to meet his or her needs. As departments do not appear to accept each other’s identification of the citizen, the citizen has to validate his or her identity at each service transaction. This model of service provision is underpinned by a mass of helplines, call centres, front-line offices and websites. A similar situation applies to interactions with business resulting in business being required to provide the same information to many parts of government. The leading edge of the new service economy that has emerged is much slicker, more immediate, more convenient to the citizen and less intrusive on the busy citizen’s time. The focus is increasingly on the totality of the relationship with the citizen11. A citizen-centric service delivery model would be life-event based, grouping service delivery around common service ‘themes’ that are meaningful for citizens and businesses, starting with significant life events, such as birth, death, marriage, and retirement, and moving to other key life events, such as moving house, changing jobs, starting a new business and the like. This life-event themed citizen-centric service delivery model would:

11 Service transformation: A better service for citizens and businesses, a better deal for the taxpayer, Sir David Varney (2006)

27  Map out key life events, occasions and scenarios in which citizens and businesses are motivated or mandated to interact with government;  Identify individual services offered by various government agencies that meet citizens’ and business’ needs in each of those life events etc.; and  Agglomerate all those basic services corresponding to an event into a single, high-level, cohesive and coherent service with a single point of access. While implementing such a service delivery model in the ‘offline’ world would be hugely problematic – it would require a fundamental re-thinking and re-design of the internal structure of government – it is less problematic in digital channels (but by no means simple).

Life-event themes on existing sites

Examples of such an approach can already be found on business.gov.au, which offers a user-friendly categorisation of service listings in three broad themes: thinking of starting a business, starting a business and exiting a business. Similarly, australia.gov.au provides a “life events”-based categorisation of service listings, covering broad themes such as starting a family, retiring, buying a property and death and bereavement. However, at this stage, this approach has not been adopted beyond providing an ordered list of services. Further, as both sites serve primarily as a navigation aid – that is, to direct individuals to other government web sites relevant to their needs – there is no guarantee that the web site eventually used for service delivery has adopted this approach to service categorisation and clustering.

The inherent flexibility of digital service delivery creates a positive environment for decomposing the complex, legacy processes, procedures and structures of government into atomic and simpler components, which can then be recombined for digital delivery in a manner that enables government to handle the increasingly complex demands of modern society and the evolving expectations of citizens and business. By decoupling the internal structure and demarcation of government responsibility and authority from service delivery, government can ensure a consistent and predictable service delivery environment that is persistent, regardless of shifts in internal structures over time. The key benefit of adopting a service delivery model of this nature is that it frees individuals from needing to know where to turn for assistance should the need arise. It removes the cognitive burden (and consequent discoverability barrier) of having to work out which department or agency is currently responsible for providing a particular service. Individuals, instead, need only understand the structure of service offerings as they relate to specific, event-based needs. Senior citizens, for example, do not need to work out which government departments or agencies are responsible for pension, mobility or caregiver and other outreach services. They need only be required to contact a single point of service delivery to access all of these and other government services. Similarly, businesses need not grapple with understanding the complex maze of regulatory structures to determine which government agency or department is responsible for issues such as taxation, employee relations, payroll, superannuation, competition, occupational health and safety, development permits and similar issues. They need only be required to contact a single point of service delivery to access all of these and other government services relevant to particular specific business-related events. The very nature of this composite approach to service provisioning and delivery creates significant value add for citizens, businesses and government agencies alike because it:

 Reduces time and effort associated with service discovery (and, on the part of government, service delivery);  Reduces resource wastage created by apparent service duplication, overlap and “bleed” between agencies and departments; and  Provides a clearer view of service delivery efficiency, effectiveness and efficacy.

28 Obviously, adopting such an approach to service provisioning and delivery involves a number of significant – but addressable – challenges. One immediate challenge, for example, would be determining how to gracefully ‘retire’ services that need no longer be offered, as they have been replaced or rolled-up into an equivalent service offered by another agency or department.

6.5 Single Source of ‘The Truth’

Achieving the kind of holistic, top-down, inter-agency, inter-application and citizen-centric approach to service discoverability articulated above can only be realised if it is anchored on a firm commitment to the principle of a single source of truth (SSOT) for all government information, content and services. That is, the service delivery model and its underlying delivery infrastructure must ensure that every piece of government data and information, content or service is stored or provisioned exactly once and no more. All possible linkages to government data, information, content or services, regardless of the digital channel via which they are accessed or by whom, must be by reference only to the single, true source of that data, information, content or service. This approach is necessary to ensure that any updates or modification to the underlying atomic services which are combined to create a composite service will be referenced throughout all digital government services and service delivery mechanisms. Achieving this outcome will necessarily require a re-think in the approach to collaboration between Commonwealth government agencies and departments. Importantly, it will require fundamental change to the prevailing mindset of “this is mine because I paid for it”. Addressing this mindset, ultimately, comes back to the manner in which service delivery and delivery outcomes are baselined, measured and KPId. While the nature and scope of change suggested here may seem anathema to government, there already exist examples of similar approaches within pockets of government service delivery communities. The GovDex initiative12, managed by AGIMO, is designed to support precisely this kind of collaboration across government, and provide a single point for managing cross-agency projects. Similarly, the Australian Government Online Service Point (AGOSP) Program is designed to enhance the current australia.gov.au site to provide simple, convenient access to an array of government information, messages and services.

While neither project is currently positioned to achieve the proposed end-point, both are excellent examples of how inter-agency collaboration on citizen-facing services can be achieved.

Isn’t Google the answer?

It is very true to say that as far as many individuals are concerned, if government services are not listed on Google, they don’t exist. However, Google alone – or any other commercial Search Engine – cannot provide the complete answer, for the following reasons:

 Search reach – No commercial Search Engine is able to access and index all government information, whether as a result of government policy (e.g. privacy and security) or practice (e.g. format incompatibilities, such as information stored in databases).  Search ranking – Neither Google nor any other Search Engine is under any obligation to provide preferential ranking for government content or services. Where Search Engines use links from 3rd party sites to determine relevancy and ranking, this may result in the demotion of government pages given the amount of esoteric and eclectic government information that few people would find interesting and link to.  Invalid link structure – Search Engines rely on software algorithms to locate and index information and other services. These algorithms, in turn, rely heavily on links published on sites that point to relevant information etc. Many government web sites contain invalid or ‘broken’ links, which impede discoverability. 12 https://www.govdex.gov.au/  Search is commercial – Search Engines are commercial enterprises, not public utilities. Accordingly, they may have business policies today or in future that run counter to government 29 service delivery objectives. 7 Discoverability – Key Technologies for Consideration

As highlighted earlier, improving discoverability cannot be achieved through the adoption or deployment of a single technology. Rather, it requires a suite of varying but complementary technologies that, once integrated and deployed in an orchestrated fashion, will provide a more effective interaction between individuals and the information, content or services they are looking for.

7.1 Search

At their core, all search technologies perform a similar function: information retrieval. They assist with locating documents, locating information within documents, finding relationships between documents (and the information they contain), and locating metadata13 about documents. However, search technologies vary considerably in the way they perform this function. Different search technologies have different strengths and as a result, some search technologies may be more suited than others to achieve particular outcomes. The following is a brief overview of the most commonly deployed search technologies. 7.1.1 Free-text search Free-text search tools are able to locate and retrieve unstructured text content (such as wordprocessor files, emails, and web hypertext content). They do this by examining all the words contained within every stored document and matching them to the search keywords entered. There are many different kinds of free-text search technologies, each using different approaches to information discovery and retrieval. Some free-text search technologies use simple keyword and phrase matching, where all documents containing the exact words searched for are retrieved. Others enable more sophisticated search queries, such as the use of Boolean operators (for example “car” AND “insurance” NOT “third party”) and concept searches (for example “compulsory third party”), where only those documents containing matching and relevant content are retrieved. Each form of free-text search technology has its strengths and weaknesses, and their suitability to a particular use will depend on a number of factors, including the nature and number of the documents being searched, their typical content and the search skills of users. 7.1.2 Multimedia search More recent advances in search technology have enabled search tools to be extended to non-text forms of content, such as audio, video and photos. These kinds of non-text search tools often require a degree of pre-processing of content, where media files are individually analysed and then ‘tagged’ with the details of their content (metadata), and the search is actually performed on this metadata, rather than within the media files themselves. However, high-end multimedia search tools are increasingly able to perform automated analysis of the multimedia content itself in its native form, such as through facial recognition for images and video, and audio recognition for spoken words. 7.1.3 Parametric search Like multimedia search tools, parametric search tools will often work with metadata or meta-tags; that is, with reference to information about the documents themselves, rather than their content. Parametric searches enable the location of documents with reference to document attributes – such as when the document was created, who authored it, who published it and the like – which may or may not be contained within the documents themselves.

13 Metadata is discussed in Section 7.3.1 below.

30 7.1.4 Semantic search Semantic search tools are able to step beyond mere keyword or phrase matching within the body of documents, metadata or meta-tags and analyse the meaning of document content. This, in turn, aids in the identification of concepts covered by documents, the relationship between two or more documents as they pertain to concepts, and their relevance to the focus of an individual’s search. Broadly, this is achieved through a process called ‘disambiguation’. When the meaning of a word or term is ambiguous (for example, the word “charge” can be used in multiple contexts, such as “criminal charge”, “electrical charge”, “charge a price”, “being in charge”, “charge of the State” etc.), the disambiguation process attempts to determine the most probable meaning and match documents accordingly.

The Semantic Web

The Internet, as we know it, comprises a vast collection of information. Humans are able to use the information contained on web sites to perform a variety of tasks, such as purchase airline tickets, lookup the meaning of words, and stay abreast of breaking news. Generally speaking, this information is unintelligible to computers or computer programs, because web pages are designed to be read by humans, not computers. As a result, the various software tools that we use to locate information on the Internet and navigate our way around it are nowhere near as useful as they could be. The Semantic Web is the collective term used to refer to global efforts to remedy this problem. It involves adding additional data to web pages which, though invisible to humans, enable computers to make “sense” of the information on web pages. The Semantic Web would provide a bridge between information and richer, more powerful software tools and applications. There is a range of clear benefits for doing this, including enabling humans to delegate more tasks to computers and computer software related to finding and acting upon information contained on the web. For example, a traveller who wants to fly from Sydney to London must trawl through the online booking engines of various airlines to identify what flights are available that meet desired criteria. In the Semantic Web future, s/he would simply instruct a search tool to compile a list of all economy class flights leaving Sydney for London on a particular day, and that tool would be able to undertake the ‘leg work’ of meaningfully interrogating various airline and travel web sites to compile and present an actionable list of options.

A more advanced, semantically-enabled tool may be able to determine what information must be provided to purchase a flight from individual airlines. Having made a selection, the traveller would then be prompted for permission for the tool to automatically book the flight on his or her behalf.

Similarly, a citizen who wants to renew a license or claim a Medicare expense might use a semantically-enabled tool to traverse the various government Web sites that contain information about license renewals or Medicare claims, with the tool providing a summary of next steps. Again, a more advanced tool could automatically facilitate the application process.

7.1.5 Behavioural search Behavioural search is an emerging technique that seeks to overcome or compensate for an individual’s lack of search skills or familiarity by combining two kinds of insights:

i. Insights discerned from individual user behaviour, such as where they started their search, the search terms they use, and the search results they explore; and ii. Insights discerned from the aggregate behaviour of other users with similar search patterns, in particular, the ultimate action they took, such as the form they downloaded or service they accessed to provide users with links to the “right” kind of information, content or services.

31 7.1.6 Federated/Universal search Federated and universal search technologies enable the use of a single search interface to span multiple, disparate information or service repositories. In the case of federated search, each underlying repository will require its own search tool. The federated search tool captures the individual’s search request, passes it onto the various search tools sitting atop each of the repositories it spans, gathers the search outputs from each underlying search tool (in some cases de- duplicating matches), and presents a single, combined search result set. Universal search, on the other hand, deploys a single search engine across all of the targeted repositories (ignoring any search tools that might be attached to them), and executes the search directly, aggregating results from all source repositories, and proving a combined search result set. With federated search, then, the quality of the search results are determined by the individual search tools attached to each repository, whereas with universal search, the quality of the search results remains within the control of a single search tool. Each approach has different strengths: federated search may benefit from the capabilities of specialist search tools sitting atop each repository, whereas the effectiveness of universal search relies on the functionality of a single search tool, which may not be optimal for all repository sites. On the other hand, federated search does not enhance the underlying capabilities of individual search tools, whereas universal search overcomes any relevancy or recall discrepancies that may exist with individual search tools.

7.2 Supporting Technologies for Search

7.2.1 Relevancy ranking Relevancy ranking is not strictly a search technology. However, all search technologies incorporate some kind of relevancy ranking methodology or technology, as they need to apply some structure to the order in which research results are displayed. There is no standardised approach to relevancy ranking. Methods range from ordering retrieved documents according to their creation date or publisher through to attempting to intuit the relevancy a document’s content to the search query by various means. Relevancy ranking is, however, vital, as it encourages broad search recall (that is, encouraging search technologies to be run over the broadest collection of documents and services possible) while simultaneously increasing search precision. 7.2.2 Clustering Clustering tools provide another approach to highlighting relevant documents and services. As with relevancy ranking, there is no standardised approach. However, clustering tools tend to look for both commonalities and differences between individual documents and within larger collections of documents. Clustering can be done in a static fashion – using algorithms to analyse the documents and automatically assign them to one or most clusters – or in a dynamic fashion – relying on user behaviour or manual tagging to determine which documents should be clustered together. Insights gained from the clustering process can be used in the ‘back end’ of the search capability (providing a guide to other search tools as to where they should look for matched documents) or on the ‘front end’ (as a navigational aide that suggests related documents for further exploration). 7.2.3 Entity Extraction Entity extraction tools are used to automatically identify and extract atomic text elements within a given document and classify them into pre-defined categories, such as names, job title, organisation, contact details, locations and the like. A range of entity extraction tools exist, many of which are able to achieve near-human performance (that is, near 100% precision). This extracted information can then be used to automatically generate document metadata and meta-tags to aid in the indexing and retrieval process.

32 7.3 Resource Categorisation

7.3.1 Metadata Metadata (or meta-information) is “data about data”. It is text or other types of labels that describe the data contained within a body of content (such as a word document, photo, audio clip etc.). Metadata might have high or low granularity, but usually contains descriptive information about the context, quality, quantity and characteristics of content, its internal structure and its relationship to other documents. Its primary role is to assist search tools to identify relevant documents and achieve higher precision in terms of relevancy; however in some systems metadata is used to denote who may access a given document or service, and the conditions upon which access may be granted. There are many different approaches to developing metadata. A common approach is to apply a controlled vocabulary using data dictionaries that prescribe the specific words, terms or labels that may be used to describe a document or its content. One of the most common metadata schemas is Dublin core14, an interoperable metadata standard designed for cross-domain information resource description. While there has been a high level of awareness of the importance of collecting and storing metadata within government for many years, the implementation of metadata standards and achieving pan-government rigour in the creation and collection of metadata has been problematic. Anecdotal evidence shared by stakeholders interviewed during the current project indicates there are several challenges to the effective implementation and maintenance of a whole-of-government metadata standard, including:

 Rigorous metadata creation and capture can be time consuming, especially for employees with insufficient training and low awareness of the importance of metadata;  In many instances, only the original authors of a particular document or resource have the necessary knowledge or expertise to create accurate metadata;  Quality assurance, to minimise spelling errors and data type mismatches, for instance, can be variable between departments;  Basic metadata fields, such as document title, author and keywords, can pose significant problems for even the simplest documents and resources. Documents may have multiple possible titles, author surnames can change (for example, upon marriage), and keyword selection choices may vary depending on the person to whom the task is delegated. All of these issues can be overcome – and must be, if service discoverability is to be appreciably improved – but it will require a very dedicated focus on improving metadata standards adherence across all government departments and agencies.

14 See http://dublincore.org/

33 The Importance of Metadata

The importance of metadata in facilitating ease of discovery and access to government information and services was identified as far back as 2000, in the Government Online strategy document, which noted:

A challenge faced by users of large collections of information like the Commonwealth's is to easily locate information. This can often be a challenge even for users familiar with the structure of government, let alone for those who are not. Government Online as a whole must be easy to comprehend and use. Applications and services must be packaged in a way that makes information easy to find and enables similar or related transactions to be conducted together.

Under this strategy, the Government is committed to implementing systems so that information and services can readily be located without the user needing to understand how government and government information is structured. The technology that will underpin this feature of Government Online is metadata. A collection of metadata comprises descriptive information about government information and services, which can be used to classify, present and search the information that it applies to.

Careful and systematic application of an agreed metadata standard by agencies will enable a seamless interface to government to be constructed, based on the separate online services of each agency. If care is taken to ensure that metadata is of a high quality, the increased ease with which resources can be discovered will provide benefits to agencies and users alike.

The Australian Government Locator Service (AGLS) has been developed over the last few years by the National Archives of Australia (NAA), in consultation with Commonwealth, State and Territory agencies, as such a metadata standard. It is a set of 19 descriptive elements which government departments and agencies can use to improve the visibility and accessibility of their information and services. AGLS has been developed cooperatively by all Australian government jurisdictions and is based upon the leading international online resource discovery metadata standard, the Dublin Core standard.

The AGLS Metadata Standard has been published as an Australian Standard AS 5044 and was mandated for all Australian government agencies by the Better Services, Better Government strategy document in 2002.

For more details of the AGLS Metadata Standard see http://www.agls.gov.au/.

7.3.2 Taxonomy A taxonomy (or taxonomic scheme) is a formal, hierarchically structured classification of a given domain into topics and subject categories. Taxonomies do not define the topics or subjects they cover, but, rather, map out their relationship to one another. There are no standard formats or approaches for taxonomy development, but a range of tools exist to automate their development (based on text and semantic analysis) or otherwise map out a framework for manually refining taxonomy for a given domain. Taxonomies are very useful as a navigation tool, as they provide a simple, visual overview of the structure and scope of available services. As topics or subjects are selected, a ‘zoom’ operation occurs and a representation of all sub-topics etc. for the selected topic or subject is displayed. This navigation process achieves an iterative thinning of the underlying information base: the individual selects a focus, which narrows the information displayed by discarding or hiding all the other items not relevant to the current focus.

34 In this way, a very large (say, 1,000,000) item information source could be described by a relatively compact taxonomy of 1,000 concepts that could be very rapidly zoomed or navigated down to 10 or so items of interest. As individuals are guided to their eventual goal, they will discover all potentially relevant information and services. Taxonomies can also be used to provide additional guidance to search tools to increase the precision of search results. Finally, they can also be used to inform the manner in which retrieved information should be structured for presentation. 7.3.3 Ontology The term “ontology” is used to describe a philosophical approach to studying the nature of things and categorising their relationships. In the current context, however, it is used to define the process of identifying a series of concepts within a specific knowledge or functional domain (say, mental health or corporate regulation), and mapping the relationships between those concepts, and the specific meanings of terms used to describe those concepts and their relationships. Developing ontologies to describe domains is very useful from a discoverability perspective, as it provides the basis for creating a shared vocabulary that may be used to define and describe content, resources and services within that domain. This vocabulary can, in turn, can be used in conjunction with search tools to assist in the identification of relevant documents, resources, services, and navigate intelligently through them. When developing ontologies for use within and across government organisations, it is important to be mindful of the proposed users of the resultant structure. Relying on an ontology that reflects the internal government understanding of structure may result in an impenetrable and unusable structure for external and public users. 7.3.4 Tagging Tagging is perhaps the most ‘low-tech’ yet simplest tool available for improving the recall and precision of search tools. Tagging is the process of assigning a tag (or keyword) to a piece of information, document or other piece of content (such as an image) to describe both the item and its contents. This tag (which is a form of metadata) can be chosen and assigned by the item’s creator, the person responsible for publishing or storing it, or even a viewer. Indeed, separate tags can be created for all three of these types of users. The tags, in turn, are used by search tools to increase the precision with which they match and rank documents. 7.3.5 Folksonomy A folksonomy is an emergent form of classifying documents and other content items. It is typically used to describe the process whereby a user community collaboratively tags, categorises and otherwise annotates content and service repositories in order to create a more meaningful aide to navigating and locating content of interest. Individuals add labels to documents and other content and service items as a means of being able to sort, structure, recall and retrieve content and services of interest. These tags are viewable by other users, who may add to them. Over time, themes emerge from the way content and services have been tagged in common, which form part of the folksonomy. This process has many names, including social tagging, social indexing or bookmarking and social classification.

35 8 Improving the Accessibility of Government Offerings

While the Internet is now positioned as the main government service delivery channel, citizens and businesses do not want digital government services to replace traditional channels – they want a mix of traditional and new service delivery options. Accordingly, achieving enhanced service accessibility requires that traditional channels, especially in-person, be retained where those channels better suit the individual, the individual situation and the service being accessed. Ultimately, however, channel preference is driven by a range of factors, and the primary factors that influence the decision to opt for digital channels are15:

 Convenience – Ability to access information and services at a time that suits individuals, while also requiring less time investment than in-person contact, and avoided time wasted in queues. Convenience was a factor for 83% of people surveyed.  Features – Ability to control the type and amount of information supplied or received, the consistency of information provided and not having to rely on the service person. Individual features were mentioned as influencing factors by 20% of people surveyed.  Availability – Fewer than 10% of people chose the Internet because that was the only channel available to them or because they were instructed (via another channel) to use the Internet channel.

Figure 3 - Most common reasons for making contact by internet

While not specifically tested in the Interacting with Government survey, it can be reasonably inferred from the experience of the private sector that citizens will want to access the same service in many different ways, which means the various channels will need to ‘talk’ to one another. For example, a prospective insurance customer may initially interact with an insurance company via its web site (obtaining basic product information and a quote), but then wish to ask very specific questions about their insurance needs, and contact the company’s call centre. Call centre staff will need access to the data

15 Interacting with Government: Australians' use and satisfaction with e-government services (2008)

36 generated by the online interaction in order to answer the customer’s questions and, perhaps, complete the purchase transaction. Of course, the reverse is also true. Having commenced the transaction by contacting a call centre or visiting the insurance company’s retail outlet, the customer may be unable to finalise the transaction (because they did not have all the required information, for instance), and may prefer to finalise the transaction via the company’s web site when they have the information to hand. Addressing this desire for seamless transactional migration between channels will be a key component of improving service accessibility; that is, improved digital service accessibility requires an implementation plan that extends beyond digital channel boundaries. However, cross-channel integration is only one aspect of a truly seamless service offering. There is growing demand for government – like the private sector – to provide a “one stop shop” experience in the handling of service needs that cuts across administrative silos. Citizens will become increasingly dissatisfied with the experience of being pushed from one department or agency to another, and from one channel to the next, in order to achieve a solution to their specific need. OECD research16 has demonstrated that digital service uptake increases in lock-step with a more citizen- centric delivery approach. As noted in the Western Australian Citizen Centric Government strategy statement17: [A]t present citizens and business usually need to know which agency website to visit to find the information or service they need. Agency websites also tend to be relatively limited in their interactive capability. Customers are frequently confined to downloading forms or other service delivery information and then completing their transactions via more traditional methods, such as at a counter or by post. If completion of a transaction involves a number of different government agencies, the burden has been on the customer to join-up these disparate services to complete their transaction with government. This often requires citizens and business to provide a number of agencies with the same information. The Commonwealth government’s use of web sites to enable digital service accessibility, while excellent in certain areas is patchy and disjointed in others. There exists a multitude of web sites that are subject-centric, many without a clear audience or audience proposition. Ultimately, citizens and business do not care which department or agency is responsible for service delivery. They increasingly see their time as a limited resource, and have growing expectations that their interactions with departments and agencies deliver value. They expect that problems, queries or requests will be addressed or resolved the first time contact is made. This requires government to move beyond an agency- by-agency approach to disseminating information, delivering services and providing transactional capabilities. It requires a more citizen-centric, joined-up model for service delivery that is focused on the needs of citizens and businesses. Again, the relevant benchmark here is the experience citizens and businesses have of service delivery in the private sector, particularly with respect to technology-enabled services delivered quickly and efficiently 24 hours a day, seven days a week. The ultimate objective, then, for any revised approach to digital service accessibility is to enable citizens and businesses to choose the manner, time and place in which they interact with government. Achieving this objective will no doubt be a complex process requiring considerable planning and pan-governmental cooperation. Technology can certainly assist in the process. Yet the guiding principles for achieving this objective are quite straightforward, as identified by the Varney review18:

16 See for example, User take-up of e-Government services, OECD (2008) 17 Citizen Centric Government – Electronic Service Delivery Strategy for the Western Australian Public Sector (2007) 18 Service transformation: A better service for citizens and businesses, a better deal for the taxpayer (2006)

37  Each contact is easy—citizens and businesses get to the right place, first time. Finding the right service is intuitive. The service is well signposted and available on request. Services offer sufficient access to accommodate disabled users and vulnerable groups;  Each contact fulfils a need—citizens and businesses understand how to request and complete a service transaction, for example applying for a passport. They do not need to understand the organisational boundaries that are being joined up to provide the service. The service needs of citizens and businesses are fulfilled at the first point of contact;  Each contact adds value to the outcome — each contact is relevant for the citizen or business, or the service provider. The citizen or business sees the contact as worth having and personalised to their needs. The contact is not a duplicate, made in error or nugatory;  Each contact supports policy outcomes—service providers understand and use contact to improve policy outcomes, for example reducing re-offender rates by delivering better debt counselling services to former offenders. Investment in contact is linked to policy outcomes;  Contact is trusted—government’s reputation as a trusted point of contact is enhanced by every contact. Government deals with citizens and businesses consistently;  Government understands its customer—government’s understanding of the citizen or business is underpinned by insights drawn from citizen and business behaviour data. Government exploits its insights to develop better services. Citizen and business insights are a key input to policy design; The end result is a digital service delivery model that provides citizens and business with easy, convenient, personalised and quick access to the right service, delivered in a consistent service delivery environment and which does not require users to understand how government is organised.

8.1 Implementation Considerations

The key to implementing effective services is using as the starting point the development of a keen understanding of citizens’ and business’ motivations and behaviour patterns in interacting with government. This, in turn, requires an understanding of citizen and business needs, and their transaction habits and patterns as they relate to existing services delivered across both digital and traditional channels. It is also important to have accurate data around the cost of contact, transactions and service delivery across each channel, and the business processes that currently support service delivery. This information will provide an accurate picture of the relative importance and cost of service for each channel, and help map out the business case for any service re-engineering efforts. This data-driven approach will ensure that not only are relevant and accessible services delivered, but also that government funds are invested effectively in areas of value.

8.2 Continuing Accessibility

An often overlooked, but equally important, aspect of accessibility is the continuing accessibility of services. Content continuity is a particularly important consideration. As the internal structures of government evolve, individual department and agency web sites are often merged. Content and services may be accidentally or purposefully deleted in the process, or simply displaced from their usual location, making it difficult for individuals to find or access. Similarly, a web site launched in support of a particular policy or government initiative may be deactivated, or simply not maintained, at the expiration of the initiative or once the initial public awareness budget is exhausted. Whereas the policies and procedures surrounding the management of information and other records produced by government in traditional formats are well entrenched - with a formal body, the Administrative

38 Functions Disposal Authority overseeing compliance – approaches to the preservation of digital records, and archiving of digital resources generally, are still evolving within the Commonwealth government19.

8.3 Technology Obsolescence

Related to the issue of continuing accessibility is technology obsolescence. The accessibility of digital services, especially electronic records and other information and content services is dependent on hardware and software. Accordingly, there is a technology obsolescence risk inherent in the development of any digital service or digital service delivery mechanism. What may be standard or even leading edge technology today may, over time, fall out of use, with the result that a significant number of services become inaccessible. While services themselves may evolve, their supporting information and content, and the records of their past utilisation, may become locked in an obsolete format, inaccessible via current technologies. Once again, considerable attention has been paid to this issue as it pertains to the mechanics of traditional government20, but the frameworks and capabilities for avoiding technology obsolescence with respect to digital service delivery are less mature.

8.4 Embedded Accessibility

Beyond the accessibility challenge presented in facilitating efficient access to digital services lays the issue of accessibility within a given service. Many government services are made available in formats that can present accessibility challenges. For example, an individual may seek access to a particular government report to obtain information pertinent to their needs. While the report may be readily discoverable on the relevant department’s web site, and it may be accessible in the sense that the individual can retrieve it, the format of the report may itself present accessibility challenges, such as:

 The report may be lengthy, yet not contain an index or a sufficiently detailed table of contents;  The report may be stored in a format that does not offer suitable search functionality; or  The report may reference supporting data stored in a format that requires specialist or proprietary software to access and review it (for example, statistical data or geospatial data and maps). Achieving true accessibility requires that the relevant digital service be usable in the hands of all individuals who seek to access or make use of it.

8.5 Accessibility & Disabilities

The preceding discussion has canvassed the difficulties individuals may have accessing a range of digital services. However, a number of further accessibility challenges exist for individuals with disabilities, including blindness and low vision, deafness and hearing loss, learning disabilities, and cognitive limitations, among others. It is important that specific attention is paid to the design and implementation of digital services so that individuals with disabilities can perceive, understand, navigate, and interact with them, so that they can use digital channels to effectively engage with government.

19 See, for example, An approach to the preservation of digital records, published by the National Archives of Australia at http://www.naa.gov.au/records-management/publications/Approach-to-digital-preservation.aspx. 20 See, for example, the Preserving Access to Digital Information, maintained by the National Library of Australia at http://www.nla.gov.au/padi/index.html.

39 Areas that require specific attention include:

 Images – Where images appear within a Web page, alternate (or ALT) tags should be used to provide a clear text alternative that provides equivalent information as the graphic.  Audio & Video – If multimedia files are used, then captioning should be provided as well as either a transcript or similar descriptive summation.  Mathematical or scientific notation – If a particular page of content contains complex information, or information presented in a complex structure or layout, it must still be accessible to technologies like screen readers (which convert on-screen text to audio).  PDF Files – If information is provided in the Adobe PDF format (or in some similar stand-alone document file format), then the file format must also incorporate appropriate labels and tags that ensure text and images contained within the document are accessible. If there is any doubt as to whether this is achievable, then an alternate, HTML version of the document should be made available. There already exist mandatory accessibility guidelines that articulate minimum accessibility for access to government information on web sites. The Commonwealth Disability Strategy obligates government organisations to remove barriers that may prevent people with disabilities from accessing their policies, programs and services. The Government Online Strategy further stipulates that government departments and agencies must comply with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines21 (version 1.0) published by the World Wide Web Consortium. However, departments and agencies are only required to achieve level “A” conformance with the Guidelines; that is, that all Priority 1 checkpoints articulated in the Guidelines must be met. It is currently recommended, but not mandatory, that departments and agencies achieve level “AA” conformance; that is, that all Priority 1 and Priority 2 checkpoints are met.

21 See http://www.w3.org/TR/WAI-WEBCONTENT/.

40 A new approach to australia.gov.au

The australia.gov.au site is billed as “your connection with government”. It provides links to information and services contained on around 900 Commonwealth government websites, as well as select state and territory web sites. Visitors can access a high level summary of services, categorised as ‘Personal’, ‘Business’ or ‘Non- Residents’, and link through to the site (and often the specific page within a site) that provides access to a particular service. While site navigation is quite simple and intuitive, the site suffers the same limitations as other Government web sites the world over:

 Accessing a service requires visitors to understand the mechanics of government in order to work out the likely categorisation and labelling of a particular service;  Once the relevant department or agency site is located, visitors must grapple with the particular language used by that department or agency to describe service accessibility criteria;  Where a solution or outcome requires interactions with multiple departments or agencies, it is up to the visitor to identify and navigate to each of the department and agency web sites and determine how and in what sequence to access the services.

An improved service delivery model would see the australia.gov.au site providing a single point of contact for each of the departments and agencies currently referenced on it. Rather than providing a navigation-only service, it would operate as a true, transactional and end-to-end service access and delivery experience for citizens, with a consistent and coherent interface for transacting with government. The entity operating the site (currently the Department of Finance and Deregulation) would take responsibility for transactions with, and service delivery by, the various government delivery organisations, handling the steps necessary to aggregate and integrate services that span multiple agencies and departments, and passing data back and forth between the citizen and the delivery organisation to facilitate service delivery. In adopting such an approach, the site would achieve clear recognition by citizens as the primary digital contact point of the Commonwealth government. It would provide a consistent interface for interacting with the Commonwealth government, delivering the seamless, efficient and high value service expected by citizens. By making access to services convenient, easy and accessible, citizens will increasingly use the site as the first (and, in many cases, only) point of contact. The savings available to the Commonwealth government as a result of this service access shift, together with additional savings achieved from sharing infrastructure and rationalising the array of existing government web sites, should more than cover the cost of providing this highly desirable service offering.

41 9 Accessibility – Key Technologies for Consideration

In order to achieve the level of service accessibility sought by citizens and business, government will be required to continue its investment in enabling technologies.

9.1 Personalisation and Customisation

Accessibility requires more than just universal access and availability of digital government services. It also requires service personalisation and customisation; that is, the ability for services to be shaped or reshaped so as to better meet an individual’s service needs, wants and preferences (including preferences born of cultural and ethnicity influences). Personalisation, in this context, covers the efforts on the part of an individual in making choices about service facets, while customisation covers efforts on the part of the delivery organisation to select or prioritise service facets for the individual. The benefits of service personalisation and customisation include:

 Citizen-centric service delivery;  Ability to proactively suggest relevant services, and ways to make better use of services; and  Streamlined application and transaction processing. Personalisation and customisation can be provided at a number of different dimensions. For example, information services may be altered to reflect an individual’s learning preferences or English comprehension level which, in turn, may influence the manner in which information and services are matched, prioritised and presented to the individual. Service personalisation and customisation might be influenced by timing, for example, around license renewal dates, birthdays, past service anniversaries or time since last contact. It might be influenced by an individual’s status, such as being a parent or business owner, or part of a vulnerable or disadvantaged segment. Or it might be influenced by an individual’s location or environment, such as residing in a high- crime area or in close proximity to a re-zoning request. Technologies that support personalisation and customisation initiatives are quite mature, and include:

 CRM – Customer relationship management is not strictly a technology, but rather technology plus policies, processes, and strategies with the objective of tracking interactions with individuals and capturing data and insights generated through those interactions.  Segmentation – There are a range of technologies and toolsets available for interrogating data about individuals and their service usage and interactions with a view to identifying groups of individuals who share one or more characteristics and are likely to have similar service needs.  Behaviour analysis – Similar to behavioural search technologies, behaviour analysis technologies are used to intuit insights about individual service users based on their behaviour and usage of particular services, in order to develop insights into current and future service needs. The data required to support personalisation and customisation initiatives comes mainly from individuals directly (for example, from service registration forms and service preference questionnaires), but can also be extracted from web site usage logs, search query data, real-time click stream data (i.e. what links the individual has clicked on) and by analysing choices and selections made by other people with a similar service profile.

42 9.2 Intelligent Software Agents

There is seldom consensus on what a software agent is. For the purpose of this report, we define a software agent as software that assists people and acts on their behalf in performing a task, such as locating and connecting with information or service providers. Intelligence, in this context, refers to a software agent’s ability to automatically (and, in some instances, autonomously; that is, free of human mediation) discover information being sought from multiple sources and fuse it into a coherent format. Some purpose-built intelligent software agents are able to ‘negotiate’ with other software agents (such as those deployed by service providers) to automatically provide details necessary to fulfil service requests. Software agents, intelligent or otherwise, play an increasingly important role on the web and across other digital channels. As outlined earlier, the development of the Semantic Web provides a powerful platform for the design and implementation of increasingly sophisticated digital services. Intelligent software agents will play a key role in tying it all together, and providing the necessary interaction point for humans. Semantic-enabled web services would create a fertile environment for the deployment of autonomous goal- directed software agents that can assist citizens and business to access specific government services. Intelligent software agents could be designed to automatically identify and select other service agents to interact with, and then flexibly negotiate and structure their interactions. Such an approach would enable software agents to join up information, content and services available across different departments and agencies in order to provide a blended or composite service. For example, the Commonwealth government portal for senior citizens – seniors.gov.au – might deploy software agents designed to facilitate access to specific services available via the site, or otherwise complete a task relevant to its stakeholders. Some of the site’s software agents may be designed to undertake client problem diagnosis, while other agents undertake service planning and service provision. Those agents could interact with corresponding service facilitator agents deployed by other relevant departments (such as the Department of Veterans’ Affairs, the Department of Family and Community Services and Centrelink). The entire process would be designed to provide a simple, single interface for requesting services that would otherwise require several steps cutting across multiple departments or agencies, each with separate eligibility and other rules, data requirements, and processes.

Internal process enhancement Beyond the service accessibility opportunities enabled by technologies such as those mentioned above, further opportunities for more efficient and effective service delivery can be created through improvements in the internal processes of service delivery organisations, both in the way they interact with citizens and business and with other delivery organisations. Numerous opportunities exist for improvements in workflow and business processes, information management and technology procurement. The key people, material, and information flows required to deliver a particular service should be identified and the workflow(s) assessed for value-adding and non- value-adding steps. The Enterprise Information Architecture (EIA), in particular, should be a focal point for optimising processes, as this will play a major role in the design and implementation of digital services. 9.3 Non-functional Requirements

In implementing technologies to support the accessibility of government services, it is important to have regard to non-functional requirements; that is, requirements addressing not what the technology will do, but how it will do it, such as:

43  Interface requirements – How must the system interface with its environment, the system users and other systems?  Performance requirements – How must the system perform in terms of response times, transaction capacity, security, and uptime reliability?  Operating requirements – How resource intensive is the system in terms of personnel requirements, skill level considerations, and system availability for maintenance;  Scalability requirements – How well does the system scale and is it able to deliver in all anticipated environments (e.g. low bandwidth and high bandwidth)?  Lifecycle requirements – How maintainable, enhancable and portable is the system?  Interoperability requirements – How well does the system work with other systems?

44 10Quick-Win Recommendations

10.1 Cultural

10.1.1 Commit to embracing digital as a “core” channel There is little doubt that digital service delivery channels present huge opportunities for individually-tailored government services delivered with greater efficiency and improved service satisfaction. The Commonwealth government has issued several strategy and positioning statements over the past decade indicating its desire to be at the forefront of this service modernisation. Yet the Commonwealth government lags significantly behind the private sector in its embrace of the digital medium as its core channel for service delivery. Ambitious, future-facing statements of intent are no longer adequate. It is imperative that the Commonwealth government publicly commit to adopting a citizen-centric focus to service delivery, with digital channels providing the inner core of the service delivery model. This commitment must be matched with solid implementation details, including a clear programme for expediting the ‘switch over’ to digital service delivery as the primary delivery mechanism. 10.1.2 Impose a “non-proliferation” ban for new web sites

Achieving significant gains in the discoverability and accessibility of digital government services will only be possible if the Commonwealth government implements a rationalisation plan with clear targets for gradually agglomerating government information, content and services into a small number of sites, and progressively decommissioning superfluous sites.

An important first step would be implementing a freeze on new web site deployments until minimum rationalisation targets are met. The prevailing attitude within the Commonwealth government appears to be that every new policy, government initiative or Ministerial statement requires a web site, no matter its true importance, longevity or usefulness to citizens and business. No doubt there are a number of internal factors that contribute to this mindset, but it is certainly a significant causative factor underlying the increasing proliferation of Commonwealth government web sites. To combat this mindset, the Commonwealth government should announce an immediate “ban” on new web sites, with each department and agency head required to endorse the equivalent of a non-proliferation treaty, until a more formal strategy is put in place for both sanctioning the creation of future web sites and consolidating existing sites. Beyond that, clear performance metrics should be developed for assessing site effectiveness in meeting the service access and transactional requirements of citizens and business, with those sites that do not meet performance targets flagged for consolidation into the agglomerated sites. 10.1.3 Prioritise the improvement and acquisition of specific skills A whole-of-government initiative should be launched immediately, focussed upon improving the digital literacy of current employees, especially those senior and executive staff best positioned to transform their organisations to embrace and deliver the full benefits of citizen-centric digital service delivery. Furthermore, government departments and agencies should be encouraged to recruit specific skill sets and knowledge required in order to close any identified skills gap that would impede the transition to a citizen- centric digital service delivery model. Anecdotal evidence provided by project stakeholders indicates that many government organisations lack the necessary capabilities (skills/roles) to develop and improve web services. Whereas best-practice private

45 sector companies employ specialised talent to adapt and optimise web sites and digital services, it would appear that government organisations rarely prioritise digital capabilities and have few experts in: - Web design and development (including accessibility) - Content editing and promotion - Metadata creation and maintenance - Information architecture - Customer experience design - Web site traffic and visitor behaviour analysis - Service data analysis 10.1.4 Appoint a ‘Constituent Ambassador’ within each department and agency While most Commonwealth government organisation have one or more employees tasked with managing web sites and digital services, very few of these employees have the necessary skills, experience and insight to represent and reflect the ‘voice of the user’ in discussions and decision-making processes that will underpin the move to a citizen-centric service delivery approach. Accordingly, each government organisation should be required to establish new citizen and business contact roles and functions specifically designed to provide a direct link to citizens and business, so that their needs and expectations can be reflected in internal planning processes. The Constituent Ambassador should be sufficiently senior so as to be able to engage with and influence department and agency decision-makers. 10.1.5 Ensure compliance with Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0 The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) released an important update to the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) in December 2008. The new guidelines, WCAG 2.0, supersede the previous guidelines, which were first published in 1999, and as such do not provide adequate guidance for a range of technical and accessibility issues that have emerged with newer Web technologies and services. The W3C now recommends that organisations use the new WCAG 2.0, and the Commonwealth government should, similarly, require that all government organisations adopt and comply with these new guidelines. It is further recommended that these guidelines be applied retrospectively; that is, that all government organisations immediately review current digital services to ensure compliance with the newer requirements of the guidelines. There exist several software tools that can largely automate the process of accessibility validation. It is recommended that one or more of these tools be used to:

 Identify any current accessibility non-compliance across government organisation digital services that exist today, and  Generate a regular (e.g. monthly), whole-of-government Web accessibility compliance report.

10.1.6 Conduct a discoverability & accessibility audit The accessibility validation suggested in Recommendation 10.1.5 should be undertaken in the context of a formal discoverability and accessibility audit that is conducted across all digital channels in use by the Commonwealth government. The objective of the audit is to create a true understanding among all stakeholders of the nature and extent of change required and to provide clear evidence to establish a sense of urgency for step-change.

46 10.1.7 Promote active citizen engagement in solution definition The end-users of digital government services should be actively engaged throughout each problem and solution definition stage. Actively engaging citizens and businesses to assist in the design, development and delivery of digital government services will ensure that appropriate mechanisms and procedures are put in place to underpin a coordinated, multi-channel approach to service delivery. Participation can be both informal and unstructured – say, via an online forum designed to solicit feedback and guidance – or via more formal and structured processes, such as user requirements gathering workshops, prototype testing and the like. 10.1.8 Adopt a plain language policy across all layers of government Ensure that plain language is used in all government communications in order to ensure that it is readable and easy to use by the relevant audience(s). The vocabulary level should ensure that only words and expressions familiar to everyone are used. Similarly, it is important to use sentence patterns that are easy for the average person to process. Although technical or administrative language will be unavoidable from time to time, all unnecessary jargon and abstruse language should be eliminated. There are a number of excellent online resources devoted to improving the adoption of plain language, including http://www.plainlanguage.gov/ and http://www.plainlanguagenetwork.org.

10.2 Technology

10.2.1 Develop a whole-of-government search strategy The objective of the strategy is to provide a long-term vision with clear and actionable goals, under which Commonwealth government departments and agencies can coordinate their search capability planning and implementation efforts. The strategy will require strong support at the “C-Suite” level within each department and agency (i.e. CEO, CIO, CMO and CTO) and other key stakeholders, and should include a high-level business case supporting the recommended initiatives, based on rigorous analysis and sound management strategy principles. It should contain detailed recommendations on many aspects of the strategic approach to technology procurement as applicable to each search technology class. To assist government organisations with their search capability planning and management initiatives, and specifically to support increased service discoverability and accessibility, the strategy should articulate the manner in which service discoverability and accessibility will be measured, and articulate both a best practices framework for technology selection and implementation, and service capability benchmarks. Only once there is a shared vision on discoverability and accessibility requirements and goals will government organisations be able to optimise any search technologies management, support, procurement and implementation work plans. 10.2.2 Develop an interim plan for addressing search deficiencies Developing and implementing a whole-of-government search strategy is likely to be a 2-3 year undertaking. In the interim, there will undoubtedly be a range of tactical search improvement initiatives that can be implemented to achieve quick discoverability and accessibility wins. These include:

 Exploring the use of ‘natural language’ search tools, which would enable search queries written as complete sentences (e.g. “Where do I need to go to enrol to vote in Mildura?”).  Identify options for reducing the exposure of non-technical individuals or non-sophisticated search users from advanced search options, such as Boolean language.

47  Identify tools and methods available for uncovering search trends and troubleshooting the common causes of search errors or inefficiencies.  Identify technology and tools that not only improves individuals’ ability to locate and retrieve information, but also make informed decisions regarding what to do with it.  Implement ‘behind the scene’ search technologies, such as “fuzzy logic”, automatic spelling correction and word stemming to boost search recall and precision.  Provide multiple search interfaces – ranging from the simple to the sophisticated, free-form to step-by- step search guides – and allow individuals to choose their preferred search interface.  Conduct experiments and user-testing to determine the best format and structure for presenting search outcomes, including interactive content visualisation tools and concept and word clustering tools that enable individuals to navigate search results more intuitively.  Adopt tools that provide better visualisation of available content and services (in addition to, but not replacing, traditional search tools and navigation structures).  Implement technologies that allow automatic prioritisation of content and services listed on a web site’s homepage based on real-time visitor behaviour and traffic trends (for example, if there is a sudden spike in searches for fire danger warning information, the technology would automatically place a prominent link to this information on the homepage to satisfy future visitors with similar information needs).  Implement technologies that enable the prediction of user context from behaviour, so as to allow automated recommendations of relevant content and services.  Early adoption of user-driven tagging and folksonomies (tag clouds and relevance rating) to generate a community ownership approach to the presented information.

10.2.3 Enforce standardised metadata policies Standardised metadata polices, and their rigorous application, are key to enhancing discoverability and accessibility. The current AGLS metadata standard was originally crafted in 1997, some twelve years ago. It became a formal Australian Standard (AS 5044) in 2002. It is now a mandated government standard; that is, all Commonwealth government departments and agencies must use it to improve the visibility and accessibility of their digital services. Despite this long history, AGLS adoption and practical application across the Commonwealth government is patchy at best. Ultimately, however, this is not a technology issue but, rather, a cultural one. While AGIMO – the department responsible for developing and overseeing guidelines for the publication of Commonwealth government web sites – has actively promoted AGLS and recommended its adoption and use, it is fair to say that the correct implementation, use and maintenance of the AGLS metadata standard has not been rigorously enforced. As a result, while there are certain pockets of good AGLS metadata implementation within various department and agency web sites, there are many more that have implemented it poorly. Efforts to implement AGLS have been under-resourced in many government organisations and poorly maintained on an on-going basis as information, content and services have grown and evolved. The approach to metadata development and deployment has, as a result, been ad hoc, and tends to happen after the fact (that is, well after the original digital resource was developed). This is not a cost effective approach, nor is it one likely to achieve a quality outcome. Unless and until the Commonwealth government starts enforcing appropriate business practices for the creation and maintenance of AGLS metadata across all government organisations, the discoverability and accessibility of digital government services will remain an issue. It is recommended that a specific government agency, such as AGIMO, or the Auditor General (supported by the Australian National Audit Office), be charged with the responsibility for ensuring compliance with the AGLS metadata standard.

48 Audits should be undertaken both at fixed intervals (for example, bi-annually) and on an on-going basis (for example, as new digital services are launched). These audits should be reinforced through effective penalties and other sanctions for non-compliance. 10.2.4 Develop a whole-of-government service migration plan While the rationalisation of Commonwealth government web sites is a desirable objective, it is important that a formal service migration plan be prepared prior to commencing any rationalisation process. The service migration plan should be designed to ensure that:

 Important information, content and services are retained;  Duplicated or redundant information, content and services are eliminated; and  Obsolete formats or technologies (or formats and technologies at risk of obsolescence) are replaced. Developing and implementing a service migration plan that takes a holistic, pan-government view of content and services should also ensure that migration initiatives are conducted in a manner that achieves added benefits, including:

 More flexible, citizen-centric service aggregation and presentation;  Improved content and service quality;  Better metadata capture and tagging; and  Adoption of more effective and efficient service management practices.

10.2.5 Develop a discoverability and accessibility technology roadmap There is a staggering array of technology options for addressing the range of issues, opportunities and challenges presented in attempting to improve the discoverability and accessibility of digital government services. Rather than assume that each government organisation has the requisite skills, knowledge and resources (including budget) to adequately investigate, assess and compare these technology options, the Commonwealth government should prepare a technology roadmap for distribution to all government organisations (and other stakeholders). The technology roadmap should:

 Clearly define its scope and boundaries; that is, the specific types of discoverability and accessibility issues sought to be addressed by the roadmap;  Articulate all of the short-term and longer-term discoverability and accessibility goals to which the Commonwealth government is committing to addressing;  Identify all essential conditions, selection criteria, system requirements and implementation targets that have been considered in preparing the roadmap;  Identify specific technology solutions that will help government organisations to meet those short- and longer-term discoverability and accessibility goals, and their respective strengths and weaknesses;  Match each technology to the relevant goal(s) for which they provide a solution. The key benefits of undertaking a technology roadmapping exercise of this nature are:

 It will provide information and guidance to assist all government organisations to make better technology investment decisions;  It can identify any pre-existing technology investments or other activities or initiatives that can be leveraged in any future technology implementation project;  It will create opportunities for pan-government collaboration or co-ordination in technology solution selection and purchase; and

49  It may create opportunities for the Commonwealth government to collaborate with its existing technology vendors (and would-be vendors) to identify opportunities for better deploying existing technology solutions and capabilities. It is strongly recommended that a multi-agency steering committee be charged with overseeing the development of the technology roadmap, to ensure that the profiled technologies are adequate to meet all internal (government) and external (citizen and business) needs. Further, the roadmap development process should allow for broad consultation with relevant experts (industry or otherwise) and other interested parties. As noted, in preparing the roadmap, it is very important that its scope and boundaries are clearly defined. This level of clarity can only be achieved once the government has clearly articulated its discoverability and accessibility vision (such as the vision referred to in Recommendation 10.3.1).

10.3 Service Delivery

10.3.1 Define a customer experience vision Achieving lasting change in any organisation starts with articulating a clear, shared vision that orients every individual within the organisation to a new, common direction. The vision must clearly distinguish the future from the past, and create a sense of urgency within the organisation for embracing and achieving real change. The Commonwealth government should define its Customer Experience Vision for the delivery of services across all delivery channels. Its purpose should be to reinforce and institutionalise not just the reasons for changing the service delivery model, but how that change will be effected. In addition to taking a strong leadership role, the government should ensure the Customer Experience Vision receives strong internal sponsorship at the very top of each department and agency, and develop the necessary enabling structures to empower employees for broad-based action. 10.3.2 Plan for iterative service delivery improvements There’s a growing gap between the level of service citizens and business expect from government and their perception of what they are actually getting. Processes, procedures and tools should be put in place at department and agency level for capturing qualitative and quantitative data about citizen and business contacts, service requests, usage, behaviour and satisfaction. As Sir David Varney said in his Service Transformation report: “Deep insight into customer needs, behaviours and motivations, plus the ability for citizens and businesses to have better information on the services we offer, are all important for the design of public services that support the Government’s desired policy outcomes. Citizen or business insight is a starting point to answering this challenge”. Data sources might include demographic data, surveys, discussions with front-line staff, feedback from focus groups and consultation exercises, and ‘complaints, compliments and comments’. This data will form the basis of discovering insights into current and emerging service needs, and for developing innovative approaches to service delivery improvements. Data collection and insight development should be focussed on answering several key questions:

 Who are our “customers”?  What do they want and why?  Where and when to they want access to it?  How do they assess service quality? To assist government departments and agencies to implement insight and service improvement initiatives, an online self-assessment toolkit should be developed to help government organisations assess their

50 capacity to achieve citizen-centric service delivery, and identify areas and methods for service delivery improvement. 10.3.3 Develop firm service delivery KPIs and publish results All Commonwealth government organisations’ service delivery KPIs should be reviewed to ensure they are in alignment with stated objectives for digital service delivery. An integral component of these KPIs should be customer satisfaction metrics, covering typical customer satisfaction dimensions, including service relevance, accessibility, choice and convenience. In addition, the Commonwealth government should commit to publicly publishing the results of a regular (quarterly) analysis of service delivery KPI performance for each department and agency. 10.3.4 Increase the cross-skilling of existing service delivery staff As service requests continue their migration from traditional to digital service delivery channels, the Commonwealth government should adopt plans that ensure their current delivery employees are able to deliver services effectively across both traditional and new channels. For example, many private sector businesses are implementing “click to chat” technologies which enable web site visitors to establish a ‘live’, text-base chat (conversation) with a customer service representative within their web browser. Rather than hire specific staff to service this channel, the preference is to retrain existing call centre staff to handle these and other digital service tasks, including responding to emails and monitoring comments and requests submitted via web site forms. 10.3.5 Develop a ‘Best Practise’ guide to Search Engine optimisation It is a by-word of digital channels that if something cannot be found via Google, then for most people it does not exist. As the Interacting with Government report found “the majority (90%) of people use a search engine to find government websites...very few [people] indicated they automatically went to an organisation’s website when wishing to contact a government agency by Internet. The most common action was to ‘google’ either the name of the organisation or the subject matter they were interested in. This was also true among those who knew the website address or were aware of government portals such as australia.gov.au22”. Given the paramount importance of Search Engines in assisting individuals to locate government services, it is important that every department and agency has a strategy for optimising their listing and ranking in dominant Search Engines. The Best Practice guide should provide instruction on:

 How various Search Engines identify, index, weight and rank government web sites;  How to conduct a self-audit of a department or agency’s current Search Engine ranking;  The importance of adopting standard Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) procedures, such as embedding keywords and other metadata in all Web site pages;  Developing and implementing an SEO checklist for each new web initiative;  The most frequently used search terms and key words when searching for government services and information ; and  How to monitor and measure Search Engine rankings and SEO outcomes and calculate ROI and benefits. Training and workshops should be run for employees responsible for web site operations and digital service delivery.

22 The report also noted that survey participants “[found] government websites too complicated and that search results [generated by the government website] do not always provide relevant information.”

51 10.3.6 Conduct ‘Mystery Shopper’ Analysis The Commonwealth government should commission regular “mystery shopper” research across all of its public-facing web sites to measure service quality, and to gain specific feedback and insights into the discoverability and accessibility of individual sites.

Individuals (posing as “mystery shoppers”) would be required to perform specific tasks – such as requesting a service, locating information, making an inquiry or lodging a complaint – and then complete standardised reports detailing their experience and rating it via a range of criterion.

52 11Longer Term Recommendations

11.1 Collaborative Innovation Fund

One option for overcoming the accountability barriers to inter-departmental collaboration created by the FMA Act is to establish a collaborative innovation fund for implementing new digital service delivery capabilities with a funding model that requires each project to have multiple government organisations as both project supporters and participants. Such a funding approach for new initiatives will ensure:

 Greater awareness between government organisations about their respective digital service delivery activities and plans;  Increased visibility of areas with potential for joint initiatives;  More effective consultation between government organisations prior to the launch of new initiatives; and  Improved collaboration and information sharing on proposed technological approaches to cross- agency initiatives.

11.2 Evaluation Framework

The ultimate objective of all efforts to improve the discoverability and accessibility of digital government services is to provide consummate and convenient, citizen-centric service for the general public. Benefits of this nature come only with change and, equally, this change must be sustained by demonstrable benefits. Accordingly, it is essential that an appropriate benefits realisation and evaluation framework is developed and implemented to enable all relevant stakeholders to identify, optimise and track the expected benefits from changes in service delivery to ensure that strategic objectives are achieved. The starting point for the on-going measurement and evaluation of services and channels will be public satisfaction with digital government services, including perceptions of added value, public awareness and trust. However, there is a much broader range of technical, cultural and organisational factors that will influence the outcome of any service enhancement initiative, and it is important that the evaluation framework reflect these factors. Such a framework will enable government organisations to systematically pursue key initiatives, implement changes, track progress and measure the benefits in a transparent and consistent manner.

11.3 Centre of Excellence

The Commonwealth government should establish a Centre of Excellence with a single-minded focus on supporting initiatives to enhance digital service delivery. The key aims and functions of the Centre of Excellence would be to:

 Have a strategic rather than operational focus –The CoE should not perform actual implementation activities, but, rather, facilitate the process via which government organisations do so. A particular area of activity will be identifying sustainable solutions for re-designing existing service delivery structures to achieve optimal outcomes;

53  Provide a knowledge-base of global best practice – The CoE should serve as a reference point for implementation teams looking to understand best practices for specific aspects of digital service delivery.  Facilitate cross-fertilisation of ideas – The CoE should actively promote ideas, examples and case studies between government organisations to avoid duplication of efforts and re-inventions of previously developed solutions.  Provide a bridge to private sector expertise – The CoE should not look to create its own capabilities around specific solutions, systems or expertise available outside of government. Instead, it should provide an efficient interface between the private sector and government for tapping those resources. It is important that the CoE be provided with sufficient resources and authority to effectively “institutionalise” a citizen-centric service delivery model, and promote innovative digital service delivery thinking and solutions across the entire Commonwealth public service. Finally, to be effective in achieving a whole-of-government perspective while also remaining close to citizens, the CoE’s stakeholders should be multi-agency and multi-departmental.

11.4 Adopt a wholesale-retail view of government

This report has highlighted some of the organisational barriers to achieving a coherent and functional citizen- centric model for government service delivery. In particular, a significant barrier lies in the way that government organisations traditionally interact with the public. Due to the level of entrenched ‘siloing’ within government, each department and agency has a very specific lens via which they view the needs of citizens and business. That lens provides a view which is based very much on the nature of service requests traditionally received and fulfilled by that department or agency. Centrelink, for example, would have one view of the needs of citizens and business, which would be qualitatively different to the view that, say, the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade would have of those same citizens and businesses. Accordingly, it would be exceptionally challenging to move each and every government organisation to a point where they are able to achieve a holistic view of all citizens and businesses – in the short term, at least. Embracing the kind of life-event model for service design and provision outlined in this report would enable government organisations to gain better insight into the service needs of citizens and business. However, it would still not enable individual agencies and departments to fulfil all the service needs of any one citizen or business. As noted elsewhere in this report, embracing a citizen-centric perspective would preclude ‘stovepipe’ service delivery, in which individuals must go to multiple agencies or departments to access a government service. Enabling a citizen-centric service delivery model requires that the Commonwealth government provides only a single ‘interface’ to service access (in the digital realm, a single portal) regardless of what department or agency actually delivers the service. Turning this vision for a single point of contact into reality requires a completely different approach to the manner in which the Commonwealth government conducts business internally and with its suppliers. To that end, the Commonwealth government should embrace a wholesale-retail approach to government service delivery at the core of its service delivery model. Under this revised model:

 All services delivered by individual government organisations are deconstructed into atomic component parts;

54  A suitable internal ‘service discovery’ platform provides a transparent and standardised mechanism for accessing service components;  Each atomic service component available within a government organisation is made available on a “wholesale” basis to all other government organisations (via a standard interoperability framework published in an accessible ‘service catalogue’). All government organisations are then able to agglomerate discrete component service parts to build new “retail” service experiences. The Department of Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs, for example, in seeking to provide housing support for homeless individuals would be able to integrate aspects of Centrelink’s rental assistance and crisis payments services, to provide a complete service package. Importantly, FaHCSIA would be able to reconfigure that composite service package according to whether the homelessness was a result of, say, a catastrophic natural event (like a bushfire) or chronic poverty. However, the ultimate aim of the wholesale-retail service delivery model would be the provision of a single government interface (be it australia.gov.au or some other site) through which all citizens and businesses can access any service relevant to their needs. Such a portal interface would house the various composite services developed by the various government organisations. It could also, on its own initiative, develop new composite services in light of emerging service demands or the evolving expectations of citizens and business. Under this model, each government organisation first takes on the responsibility of being a wholesaler of service components, before then building “retail” service delivery capabilities themselves for their target service delivery groups. However, there is considerable scope for extending this model beyond the traditional boundaries of government, and making the ‘service catalogue’ available to selected external parties. For example, the Commonwealth government could offer composite services in ‘coopetition’ with other interest groups who have equal access to the same wholesale atomic service components. Under this model, then, there is a partnership between the Commonwealth government as the dominant agency and an external party (such as a traditional NGO, a private organisation or other public-facing interest group). The degree of control over service delivery parameters exercised by the Commonwealth government would vary depending on the service delivery area, the extent to which the process has been institutionalised, and the level of involvement and support required within the relevant government delivery organisations to deliver the service. An obvious application of such a model is the service delivery environment in which the Australian Taxation Office operates. For example, the ATO may provide registered tax agents with access to its wholesale service components, to enable those agents to provide enhanced taxation services to their clients directly. By broadening the application of the wholesale-retail model beyond the traditional walls of government, three key outcomes are attainable:

i. The quality of atomic service components will improve; ii. The efficiency of service delivery will improve within government; and iii.The overall quality of service delivery of government services to citizens and businesses from within and outside of government will improve significantly. Beyond these benefits, and by specifically enabling non-government interest groups to build composite services using atomic service components, the Commonwealth government will be positioned to achieve a more citizen-centric service delivery interface, with increased reach, responsiveness, accountability and effectiveness. It will also create new dimensions for service innovation and citizen and business engagement, empowerment and participation in the design and delivery of government services.

55 Case Study: “Ask Just Once”, Government of South Australia

In 2007, the South Australian government launched its “Ask Just Once” cross-government ICT strategy which had as its primary priority providing: “...a single source of information or point of contact for citizens and business whether it be the Internet, telephone or a Government shop. For example, all the information about opening a business will be found in one place on the Internet.” It proposed to develop a single entry point to government, operating under its own brand. While it would deliver services through the Internet, telephone and service desk channels, it would replace most agency-specific service channels, and make the Internet the central access point. Key to bringing this vision to reality was having government organisations working within a “franchise” model: Franchises will be based on Customer-focused groupings of services and information. For example, a “Young Person” franchise might be managed by the Department for Education and Children’s Services, in close collaboration with the healthcare, families, welfare, justice and further education sectors. Franchisees will be responsible for providing an integrated service delivery experience for the Customer(s). The approach was presented visually as follows:

Working with CSTransform, a UK-based consultancy specialising in government transformation projects, the SA government put in place a comprehensive change management programme to transform this high-level vision into a workable delivery plan, starting with the development of a one- stop-shop web presence. A key project milestone was achieving stakeholder buy-in to the new organisational and governance model that achieved a more customer-centric service delivery model without having to effect a wholesale restructure of government first.

The reformed service delivery capability is now live at www.sa.gov.au.

Sources: Just Ask Once strategy document (http://www.cio.sa.gov.au/eGovernment/ask-just-once.pdf) and CSTransfom case study documentation.

56 11.5 Apply ‘Creative Commons’ thinking to government information

A key roadblock to the effective discoverability and accessibility of government information is the notion that government must control all government information. This has led to the adoption of an “all rights reserved” model of government information ownership, and the requirement that individuals and interest groups must seek permission to republish or use government information for even the most common and non- controversial of users. Such a position does not sit well with citizen’s evolving expectations of government, underpinned by the rapid growth of adoption and usage of digital technologies over the preceding decade. Citizens now expect that any public information of interest will be available to them with at the tap of a keyboard or click of a mouse. There now exists a growing body of research23 into alternate approaches to government copyright and information ownership that will facilitate more fluid and flexible access to and dissemination of public information.

11.6 Study drivers of demand & costs

Any initiative to consolidate the existing universe of Commonwealth government web sites and to reshape the digital service delivery model should be anchored to a deep understanding of citizens and business, their motivation for interacting with government and their current and emerging service consumption patterns. This model of service demand drivers should be combined with a corresponding model of forward cost drivers associated with each service type (factoring in any known unmet demand for each service type). This integrated demand and cost model will inform the prioritisation of service enhancements as well as the allocation of resources, and ensure they are invested both appropriately and effectively. It will also provide a pan-government perspective that will ensure that all future services are relevant, targeted and unduplicated.

11.7 Match efficiency & effectiveness with efficacy

Early digital service delivery frameworks used by both the private and public sectors focussed almost exclusively on service efficiency and effectiveness. It was believed that the sole objective of digital interactions with individuals, like IT processes generally, was to make transactions faster at a reduced transaction cost. However, these frameworks left out one vital component: people. It is no longer enough that digital service interactions are efficient and effective. The recipient of those service interactions is a person, and that person must feel satisfied with not only the outcome, but also the experience of the service (see also Recommendation 11.8). That is, the service delivery process should be highly efficacious in making individuals feel like the service delivery was designed to meet their needs and expectations. This is, after all, the end goal of citizen- centricity.

11.8 Embrace the empathic web

A point frequently made in this report is that the presentation layer of Commonwealth government web sites should more fully embrace user-centric design principles. That is, sites should be designed, structured and presented in a manner that maximises optimal user experience.

23 See for example Unlocking the potential through creative commons – an industry engagement & action agenda, published by the Centre for Creative Industries & Innovation, available at http://creativecommons.org.au/materials/report_FINAL.pdf

57 Despite immense leaps in both the science and art of user-centric site design, there is an unavoidable truth when it comes to designing any site’s presentation layer: no single design can be truly user-centric, because there is simply too much diversity in the needs, wants and preferences of the various individuals who will use the site. In the past, this has meant that the user experience provided by every web site has involved compromises and tradeoffs, which necessarily erode the user experience for at least some visitors with respect to some site features and services. However, there is an emerging field of study24 into the pairing of behavioural science and web technologies to enable the design of web site presentation layers that can be dynamically altered to better match not only an individual’s preferred method of search, browsing and accessing web services, but also their emotional and cognitive needs while doing so.

11.9 Beyond SEO

Search Engine optimisation processes and techniques should only be adopted as an interim solution. The very need to undertake SEO activities is an indication that discoverability and accessibility problems remain:

 Low awareness (discoverability) – If it is proposed that australia.gov.au and business.gov.au (and any subsequently developed composite sites) will be the primary digital interfaces for the Commonwealth government, each and every Australian citizen should know this. The fact that individuals are turning to a Search Engine when looking for a Commonwealth government service is a clear sign that they do not know where to start. The ultimate objective of the Commonwealth government should be for these two sites to be permanently ‘front of mind’; that is, that individuals will immediately recall the existence (and URL) of these sites should they have a need to make contact with a Commonwealth government organisation. SEO is a tactic deployed where companies have failed to achieve ‘front of mind’ with their consumers. While this may be an understandable problem for companies that have dozens or hundreds of products and service brands, it should not be a problem for the Commonwealth government.

 Poor user experience (accessibility) – In the same way that Search Engines are the place that individuals start when they don’t know exactly where to start, individuals also use Search Engines when the site or sites they need to use are too complex and offer such a poor user experience that they cannot locate the specific service they need. SEO is also deployed as a tactic where companies want to guide customers to a very specific area or page on their web site. The concern here is that if customers land on a generic homepage that does not speak to their specific purchase need, then they may go elsewhere. Government, of course, has a monopoly on the provision of government services. A given digital government service can be said to have achieved true citizen-centricity when citizens can access it without difficulty. The underlying issue, then, is whether the homepage of any government web site makes all of the services contained therein accessible.

24 For a summary of the general principles and how they are being applied in the private sector, refer to Morph the Web To Build Empathy, Trust and Sales, MIT Sloan Management Review, July 2009.

58 12Proposed Approach to Measuring Success and Outcomes

There is a range of desirable outcomes for any initiative to enhance the discoverability and accessibility of government services beyond citizen and business satisfaction, including reduced administrative loads for business interactions and efficiency gains for citizen interactions, as well as reduced costs for government. It is important to be able to determine whether these promised outcomes are actually becoming a reality. To achieve this, an evaluation approach needs to be developed that incorporates effective measures which are rigorously applied. The evaluation plan should address what needs to be measured, how it will be measured and what suitable measures are available. It is vital to ensure that the measures are appropriately base-lined so that an unambiguous and defensible comparison can be made once changes are instituted. Primary areas for measurement include:

 Service groupings – How effectively have technologies been applied to facilitate the grouping of services and transactions to allow an individual or business to access multiple services from one service aggregation location and at the same time?  Channel synchronisation – How have technologies been applied to enable cross-channel synchronisation of government services both within individual agencies and departments and across government?  Quality improvements - How has the service provision quality of government organisations improved as a result of initiatives designed to improve service discovery and access?  Service integration – How effective has service integration, streamlining and personalisation or customisation been?  Cost reduction – What improvements in the effectiveness and efficiency of government organisations have been achieved, and have these reduced both service delivery costs (i.e. internal government costs) and service access or transactional costs (i.e. costs, including time, to citizens and business)?  Access improvements – What improvements to service delivery (including access to information and content) have been achieved, in terms of ensuring convenience and access independent of location and time?  Government integration – How have the initiatives improved the horizontal and vertical integration of government organisations? It is crucial that the evaluation and measurement approach is itself, citizen-centric. Citizens and business want intelligent, proactive, thoughtful and integrated government service delivery, rather than digital services per se. That said, the measures should distinguish between the different forms of interaction (government- citizen, government-business and government-government) and report against each category to provide optimal transparency. The measures should capture and reflect how the use (and intensity of use) of digital services changes over time, and how citizen’s awareness, attitudes, propensity to use, and the characteristics of user groups are influenced. It is important to have a clear understanding of the things that are being measured now and how they may be changed in the future, and determine if the act of changing the way that digital services are delivered then invalidates the comparison measures. Finally, it would be very useful if the measures and the relevance of their outputs can be tied directly to the missions, mandates and policies of relevant government organisations.

59 13Questions for Further Exploration

Several important issues that arose during the various stakeholder discussions and background research undertaken as part of this report deserve further explanation at some future point.

I. What is the return on investment in achieving high-levels of discoverability and accessibility? In the absence of a rigorous econometric model, it will be difficult for many stakeholders to justify the business case for either an initial or on-going investment of resources into discoverability and accessibility initiatives.

II. Should the service delivery model – digital and traditional – be federated or centralised?

III. Should digital government services be agglomerated according to task/outcome (e.g. Licenses) or segment (e.g. Seniors)?

IV. What ‘event life cycle’ would be adequate to meet the majority of citizen and business service needs?

V. How, when and why do individuals access government services, and does this change across citizen and business segments?

VI. What key factors, beyond convenience, features and availability, influence or drive individual selection of delivery channels, and do they change across citizen and business segments?

VII. Should the starting point for service transformation be high-volume services, or high ‘touch’ services, or elsewhere (such as under-serviced or otherwise disadvantaged citizens)?

VIII. How should the KPIs and other performance measures for CEOs and other senior staff of government organisations be modified to ensure discoverability and accessibility initiatives receive due attention?

IX. How might a corporate ‘scorecard’ approach be adopted to ensure that the Commonwealth government’s discoverability and accessibility vision and strategy result in a flexible, adaptable plan delivered at a whole-of-government level in a manner that is both responsive to change and improvement over time?

X. When, how and on what terms should government data be made available to the public or 3rd party service aggregators?

XI. Should access to digital government services always be mediated by government organisations, or are there other, non-mediated access mechanisms that should be explored?

60 14Select Bibliography

14.1 Reports

Service transformation: A better service for citizens and businesses, a better deal for the taxpayer (2006) Leveraging Web 2.0 in Government, Ai-Mei Chang & P. K. Kannan (2008) Citizens and E-Government transactions, R.H. Smith Consulting Associates (2002) Creating Public Value - An analytical framework for public service reform, Strategy Unit, UK Cabinet Office (2002) e-Gov 2.0: The keys to success. Choosing and building the pathway to success. Best practices and success factors, E Billiaert & E Veyret (2009) eGovernment Leadership: High Performance, Maximum Value, Accenture (2004) E-Government Survey: Getting to the Next Level, Report of the Expert Group Meeting, United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (2009) Enabling Information Discovery and Access - Concepts for Context Metadata Management within the Federal Community, Alanthus Associates, Inc. (2008) Findability - The Art and Science of Making Content Easy to Find, Association For Information & Image Management (2008) Hiding in Plain Sight: Why Important Government Information Cannot Be Found Through Commercial Search Engines, US Center for Democracy & Technology (2007) Information searches that solve problems: How people use the internet, libraries, and government agencies when they need help, Pew Internet (2007) Interacting with Government: Australians’ use and satisfaction with e-government services, AGIMO (2008) Selected Privacy and Security Issues in Digital Government, W McIver, IT Governance & Civil Society Research Network (2004) Web 2.0 and the Next Generation of Public Service - Driving high performance through more engaging, accountable and citizen-focused service, Accenture (2009)

14.2 Books

Search User Interfaces, M Hearst, Cambridge University Press (2009). Practising E-Government: A Global Perspective, M Khosrow-Pour (ed), Idea Group Publishing (2005).

14.3 Papers

Customised Delivery of e-Government Web Services, B Medjahed & A Bouguettaya, IEEE Intelligence Systems (2005) Morph the Web To Build Empathy, Trust and Sales, MIT Sloan Management Review (2009) A Methodological Approach to Semantic E-government Service Integration, F Sanati & J Lu Customized Delivery of E-Government Web Services, B Medjahed & A Bouguettaya, IEEE Computer Society (2005) Designing metadata for resource discovery, D Kiorgaard, National Library of Australia (2008)

61 E-government 2.0, J Baumgarten & M Chui, McKinsey on Government (2009) A user-centered approach to evaluating human interaction with web search engines: an exploratory study, A Spink, Information Processing and Management (2002) Multilevel Life-event Abstraction Framework for E-government Service Integration; F Sanati & J Lu New Frameworks for Resource Discovery and Delivery, J Pearce & J Gatenby, National Library of Australia Staff Paper (2009) Ontological and Pragmatic Knowledge Management for Web service Composition, S A Chun, Y Lee, J Geller, Lecture Notes in Computer Science, Springer Berlin (2004) Policy and design issues affecting the development of an Information Architecture for a Government Resource Discovery Service, L Sokvitne, State Library of Tasmania (2000) Semantic Community Portals, I O’Murchu, A V. Zhdanova & J G. Breslin, Encyclopaedia of Portal Technology and Applications (Ed. Tatnall, A.), Idea Group Publishing (2006). Semantic Interoperability for Enhancing Sharing and Learning through EGovernment Knowledge-Intensive Portal Services, C Kiu, L Yuen & E Tsui, International Journal of Knowledge and Systems Science (2009) Semantic Web Service Offer Discovery, J Kopecky, E Simperl, & D Fensel, Digital Enterprise Research Institute Social Semantic Information Sources for eLearning, J Dobrzaski (Masters Thesis, 2007) Telecentres in Rural India: Emergency and a Typology, M Mukerji, Electronic Journal of Information Systems in Developing Countries (2008) User-Centric Access to e-Government Information: e-Citizen Discovery of e-Services, G M Sacco, American Association for Artificial Intelligence (2006)

14.4 Government Publications

Citizen Centric Government – Electronic Service Delivery Strategy for the Western Australian Public Sector, Government of Western Australia (2007) e-Government Strategy for the Western Australian Public Service, Government of Western Australia (2004),

Responsive Government: A New Service Agenda, AGIMO (2006)

Review of the Australian Government’s Use of Information & Communication Technology (Sir Peter Gershon, 2008)

Service transformation: A better service for citizens and businesses, a better deal for the taxpayer (Sir David Varney, 2006)

Understanding Metadata, National Information Standards Organisation (2004)

62

Load more

  62

Copy Link