Lancashire County Council has become the latest local authority to focus its web home page entirely around a search box, stripping away almost all other information such as navigation menus.
Visitors to the new site (
http://www.lancashire.gov.uk/ )
are greeted by a minimal page whose central area features only the search facility and a large image illustrating a single current policy campaign. Users do have the option of switching to the former version of the website, described as ‘classic view’.
The new website was developed in-house and – like the previous search facility – is powered by a Google search, which has been tweaked by the web team.
The move follows a similar step taken recently by Westminster City Council as part of a deeper overhaul of the London council’s website structure and content management system (see our report from 27 July at
http://www.headstar.com/egblive/?p=241 ).
Lancashire’s new site has prompted debate on the Web Improvement and Usage Community discussion forum, run by the Society of IT Management, on the public sector ‘Communities of Practice’ site ( http://www.communities.idea.gov.uk/ ).
While some of the forum’s contributors praise the county for trying something new, others point out that many web users search for their destination directly through an internet search engine such as Google, making a purely search-focused council home page redundant.
There are also mixed views on the effectiveness of the technology underlying Lancashire’s search facility, with some forum users commending it and others claiming that it does not equal that of leading search engines.
Further criticism of Lancashire has appeared on a blog run by Cambridgeshire County Council web manager Michele Ide-Smith ( http://www.ide-smith.co.uk/?p=163 ), who – writing in a strictly personal capacity, and not representing the views of her employer – wrote: “I think Lancashire could find that a significant number of their users find the site much harder to use. Google has a distinct role – as a search engine. While a County Council website might contain a considerable amount of diverse information and transactional services, citizens have some clear goals.”
Meanwhile Google itself has begun to target local authorities directly with a set of services, software tools and best practice advice – some free, some paid-for – designed to improve the effectiveness of their websites, presented together in a local government resource centre ( http://www.google.co.uk/localgov/ ). These include additional search tools such as ‘Insights for Search’, which helps councils promote relevant events and services based on people’s search data.
My concerns were related to my experience of observing novice internet users (during usability testing sessions) having difficulties when they are faced with only a search and no browsable links to information. But I do appreciate that Council websites have a diverse range of information, which can mean home pages become cluttered with distractions. Agreeing usage of space on the home page can also be challenging, an issue raised by Carl Haggerty: http://carlhaggerty.wordpress.com/2009/08/19/the-council-homepage-search-signpost-or-both/.
I tried it out – my initial reaction was that the site was very dark and not inviting. I searched for child care – the initial results were not what I expected. I then hunted around for navigation which I found when I switched to the classic view. Not sure that this is the best approach for a government site providing public services. I much prefer their classic view!