Before we can identify research questions about user help features, we must identify these features. Initially, standard content analysis techniques were used to identify existing user help, navigation, and information architecture features on the Web portals. Agency and government portals were visited, features were identified and categorized, and a comprehensive list was developed. Once the list was developed, each portal in the study was coded as to the presence or absence of each feature.
Table 1 presents the types of user help features identified on government portal sites as well as a brief explanation of each. These include information about the site, an explicit Help section, FAQs, information in other languages, and sitemaps. These features are organized into two sections according to whether or not they would be relatively easy to implement or require few resources. Thus, simple e-mail linkages for contacting the agency, an additional help feature, a feature with more informa-
User Help and Servce Navgaton Features n Government Web Stes
Feature Explanation
Easiest and Requires Fewest Resources To Implement About the Site Link to information about the site
Contact Us Information and links to allow the user to contact the agency for more information or for help with the site
FAQs Includes answers to Frequently Asked Questions
Feedback Invites users to give them feedback about the site
Help Explicit agency- provided help with the site
Index An index of information, data, and agencies available Search Search engine to allow users to search the site Sitemap Visual representation of the entire Web site User Tips Helpful hints on how users can use the site
More Technically Difficult or Resource-Heavy To Implement
Live Help Links to live chat with agency representative to provide assistance Other Languages Site provides information in other languages
Text Version An alternate site is provided in text
Table 1. User help features
tion about the site, user tips, and an e-mail or comment section to provide feedback about the site would be easy to implement. Indices, sitemaps, FAQs, and search engines also would require minimally more work but little technical expertise to implement.
The most reasonable explanation for widespread user help features is that the features which are easiest and cheapest to produce will be utilized most frequently. There is no reason to believe that this pattern would differ across levels of government.
Therefore, the first research question is:
R1: User help features requiring the least technical abilities and fewest resources to implement will be found more frequently across all levels of government. The features requiring the most technical abilities and greatest levels of resources to implement will be found least often.
Table 2 provides a listing of the various portal features used to provide users as- sistance in finding agency online services. These features are not as common as the user help features listed above. They include agency or government calendars leading to information as well as various ways to link to services (e.g., Answers A to Z, Do You Know?, Facilities Locators, Frequently Requested Site, Featured Links, Quick Links, and What’s New).
Stowers
We already know that well-planned formatting leads to success in finding sought- after information or services (Blackmon, Kitajima, & Polson, 2005) since users seek
“information scent,” or clues to the information they want (Chi, Pirolli, & Pitkow, 2000). Further, Web site developers can structure a site’s portal entryway to sepa- rate users into knowledgeable consumers or users who might not know much about government. Thus, they are able to take advantage of the fact that users with experi- ence and expertise typically utilize different strategies to find information (Jenkins, Corritore, & Wiedenbeck, 2003). Different agencies have used these principles to structure entry into their Web sites in different ways. This information can be used to structure service navigation schemes or the overall information organization of the entire Web portal.
This research is clearly exploratory and there are few theoretical or practical reasons to distinguish one type of service navigation scheme from another. In fact, there is no clear difference in the amount of level of technical expertise or resources needed to develop each scheme; they are just different ways of conceptualizing services and setting up the information scent discussed above. However, the simplest service navigation schemes are the ones which provide only basic description and require
Feature Explanation
Agency information Listings of all agencies in directory form Answers A to Z Alphabetized listings of answers to questions Calendars Calendars of government activities and events Contact Information Linkages to direct contact information for agencies Do You Know How I Do ___ …? List of questions organized according to major service areas
from the citizen’s point of view, stating “how do I do x or y?”
E-Government Services Direct link from home page to all e-government services
Events Link to information on major events
Facilities Locator Direct linkage to way to locate government offices Featured Link/Spotlight Many sites have featured programs or linkages
Hot Topics Link to information on what are considered currently important issues
Most Visited/Frequently
Requested Site Links to or listings of the most frequently visited sites, indicating the importance of that information Popular Services/Major Programs Highlighting of popular services or major programs Quick Links Listing of the commonly asked questions in prominent format Special Initiatives Current, new, or special initiatives from the agency
What’s new Listing of new items posted on the site
Table 2. Service navigation aid features
User Help and Servce Navgaton Features n Government Web Stes
no reconceptualization (e.g., E-Government Services linkages and Links to Agen- cies); therefore, we would suggest that these would be most popular. There would be no expectation that the usage of these labeling systems would differ from one level to another level of government.
R2: The E-Government Services/Links to Agencies service navigation labeling systems would be found most commonly among government agency Web portals, no matter the level of government.
Table 3 identifies the information architecture, or structure, of systems of various Web site portals; in other words, how access to the information is organized. The various possible ways in which the Web portal can be organized include an audi- ence/market orientation (the now familiar citizen/visitor/business/government) according to the types of services or tasks available, the kinds of topics or issues, or a hybrid of several types.
The audience/market orientation is one in which the Web portal’s navigation scheme is segmented into a separate set of linkages for each potential audience.
For example, the audience-oriented FirstGov.gov site has four tabs leading to four different sets of site features: For Citizens, For Businesses and Non-Profits, For Federal Employees, and Government-to-Government. States with audience/market orientations will often have their sites segmented according to the purpose of a visitor (Access Washington’s Living in Washington, Working/Employment, Doing Business, Education/Learning, and Visiting/Recreation).
A portal guiding its visitors according to the types of services or tasks available will have navigation features listing the types of services provided by the agency and providing links to information or services on those areas. Portals guiding users according to topics or issues sets up navigation according to subject matter dealt with within the agency or government.
Table 3. Types of information and service organization on government Web portals
Type.of.Information.
Architecture Description...Site.is.Organized.Around:
Audience/Market The needs of particular audiences or markets. For example, Firstgov.gov has information organized around Online Services for Citizens, for Businesses, and for Governments.
E-Government Services/
Links to Agencies The services, tasks, or functions offered by the agency Topics/Issues Various topics, often just miscellaneous listings of topics Hybrid site Combinations of all of the above
Stowers
One of the few theoretical suggestions as to how these features would be clustered is by Ho (2002), who suggests that the system of information architecture used is a function of whether an agency is traditionally organized with a bureaucratic paradigm (in which case the information architecture would be structured according to a traditional listing of agencies) or whether it has moved to the more efficient e- government paradigm emphasizing a customer service orientation (with a structure according to the Web site audience or market).
However, Ho’s (2002) hypothesis also suggests that there is necessarily a direct and strong linkage between design ideas within an agency’s technology branch and the organizational sophistication of the overall agency, which is unlikely. Indeed, staff from these two areas are unlikely to communicate often (this is, in fact, one of the most commonly cited breakdowns of technological systems, the lack of com- munication between technology developers and end users). Therefore, no research question is posited for these site features.
As discussed in the research methodology section, the components of these features on each government’s main Web portal were identified for this project, their presence or absence on the portal was coded, and basic analysis was conducted.