Lincoln's website helped Lincoln rank second on a list of top digital cities as ranked by the Center for Digital Government. And it's true, InterLinc offers a lot of services, several of which I use regularly. The folks behind InterLinc should be applauded.
If I had to recommend changes to InterLinc to make it even better, I would offer three. First, the organization of information starts to fall apart as you get deeper into the site. The first couple layers of the site are easy enough to navigate. The problem tends to begin with individual departments. Data are not organized consistently within a department's site, and they are not consistent across departmental sites. Fixing the problem won't be easy and will require a certain amount of standardization (which is rarely popular), but it could be done.
Second, the quality of content could be improved. At the very least, somebody should edit content before it goes live. Typos and odd grammar don't help city government's image. Beyond that, information could be more descriptive and more complete.
Third, and most critically, the entire site needs an accessibility overhaul. The current site is not nearly as friendly as it could be to various assistive technologies (such as screen readers). The City should consider having an accessibility audit conducted to ensure the site meets all state and federal requirements. If it doesn't -- and I don't think it does -- the City could, at some point, face legal action.
There is also the 1998 design of the site to consider, but that doesn't bother me all that much. Content comes before design, and for the most part InterLinc does a good job getting the content right. Still, a visual overhaul while working on the third point above would make a lot of sense.
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I could not agree more. I have a few pages on Interlinc bookmarked and open tabs throughout my entire work day.
But today… I was quoting some census data in a grant application, and wanted to verify that it was from the most-recent census. I found what I needed with a keyword search. However, had I tried to find the page I needed by starting with the agencies list, I probably would not have found it. It was only five clicks deep, but that is only if you know to select Planning Department (and that part of my brain was not working at the time) and “Data Bank.” I’m a fan of descriptive text links and titles (while using a few words as possible, of course), so a user knows exactly where he or she is headed, and “Data Bank” does not qualify.
I love that a lot of information is available on the city’s Web site, but I re-learn where to find things every time I go there. It’s not intuitive at all.
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