Disruptive Proactivity

Shortly before OpenTech, I was chatting to someone about DirectGov. I’m not sure how we got there; but there are a couple of things that could be done in an hour to make DirectGov better.

1. Link
2. Direct Feedback

Link. Link!

Tim Berners Lee’s talk on Raw Data Now starts talking about making documents linked, and how it can go to virtually any document you can imagine. This is basic stuff, but something that still gets missed so very very often.

Looking at a current page (it’s on swine flu), there are many places where there just aren’t links where there should be. Part of that is policy, part of that is focus, both parts are wrong. Here’s one line near the top:

… Until then, if someone thinks they may have swine flu, they should go online and check symptoms on the NHS Choices website, or…

One of the reasons for DirectGov is the standardisation and consistent quality of the site; at no point in the handling of that page did any of the processes notice that there’s no link there to the website the words are telling people to check. It’s just not there (at time of writing, below that paragraph; it’s buried a lot further down the page under a set of different links).

I understand that DG want high levels of editorial control – that’s the reason for DG’s centralisation – but if you want high editorial control, is it too much to expect some basic standards? It’s not just that page, it’s all over. I can understand not linking to randomdomain.com, but there’s got to be some level of faith in other government websites. Surely? There are numerous examples on DG where they talk about some news from PM.gov.uk, but don’t link to it there either.

How to fix this: In one of the editorial checks, add a requirement that if the text says to references a website, there’s a link given to the actual website. So very basic; and completely unnoticed.

Direct Feedback

The reason that the problem on that busy page (if DG’s SwineFlu page isn’t getting a lot of traffic, then DG has bigger problems), is there’s no feedback mechanism. You get a page and you get what you get. If there’s something you think’s missing, then you have no way to point out that there’s even a missing link. DirectGov should add a “comment on this page” link right at the bottom, which connects viewers to the content authors/editors in a controlled way.

One use of IntenseDebate is to allow easy commenting on a page that doesn’t already have it. Cut and paste a line, and people can suddenly attach comments to any page on your website. Put it in the footer next to the “Jobs at DirectGov” link – because more people use DirectGov than work there.
Then, have one of the innovation team, take the XML feed of pages & comments, access to the DG CMS, and send the comments on pages to the people who edited the page last (or, say, in the last 3 days). Pretty quickly, quality will go up. Some comments will be from the tin-foil-hat brigade (and Intense Debate is good for facilitating a sensible tone in that type of debate); but most will have suggestions that are potentially helpful. Installing ID is a cut and paste of one line, and I’m sure the Innovation team can knock something up in an hour (depending on CMS access) to connect with the people who use DG, with the people who write it. Issues here are in no way technical.

One of the current trends in the media industry is all about connecting journalists with those who see their work, either via twitter, facebook, or just publishing an email address, and how this increased connectivity is often considered good for journalism. It’s not substantively different for DirectGov’s authors and editors. And that’s got to be a good thing.