As the White House continues its push to increase public access to information and leverage social networking and other "web 2.0" features such as Twitter’s micro-blogging platform across the government, satisfaction with government websites has remained constant since the pervious quarter at 73.6 on a scale of 100, according to the University of Michigan’s American Customer Satisfaction E-Government Satisfaction Index.
However, the index had trended upward for the three previous quarters before stabilizing. According to index, published by Foresee Results, people that are satisfied with a federal website are 86 percent more likely to use it as a primary resource, before, for example, trying to reach a call center, and they are 83 percent more likely to use the site again.
Website satisfaction is the result of a number of areas working together successfully, but 90 percent of respondents cited functionality, navigation and search as most important, and the importance of aesthetic – a site’s look and feel – is on the rise.
According to the index, people are most satisfied with e-commerce in government websites, and they ranked career and recruitment sites highly. And while satisfaction with e-gov falls short of the private sector, it easily beats feelings toward engaging with the government offline.