It’s unofficial! Almost three in ten prefer Directgov

Sam Smith tells us that 28% of people prefer the official DirectGov service, written at considerable expense to the taxpayer, to his own DirectionlessGov which just uses Google.

Initially, we displayed google results in the left, and Direct.gov.uk results on the right. After a month of usage, these were switched to look into whether the earlier display of google (on the left) was disadvantaging direct.gov.uk. When the direct.gov.uk results were shown first, 28% of people a small (3%) decrease in the percentage who clicked a google result when it was shown second rather than first.

New improved DirectGov search hasn’t change the figures.

Does this mean we should vote for Sam to run government? No; he’s young and full of ideas and being responsible for hundreds of thousands of people would drive him nuts I’d have thought. But he proves better than anyone the powerful contribution that co-creation (or Democratising Innovation, as Eric von Hippel calls it) can make to transforming public services. So anyone who wants to transform government and release incredible efficiencies would do very well to make government open and navigable, giving Sam and everyone like him the best possible chance to apply their creativity to maximum effect.

It may feel a bit destructive of morale. It may be humbling to admit that seven out of ten people prefer this service that Sam and friends created in an hour as a joke to a service that has taken years and cost to date - I dont know - £50m (real taxpayers’ money contributed by real people, including hardworking families but also lazy families and hardworking non-families, and indeed lazy non-families, all of whom are also real people).

WIBBI ideal government was ready to admit its shortcomings and embrace this sort of help to do things better and cheaper.

Published by William Heath on 19/02/06 at 2:32pm

Comments

Maybe it’s because Google trusts it’s users to know what they are searching for?

Being the new owner of an open fire and vaguely aware of the Clean Air Act, I did a search for ‘Smokeless Zone’.

Every Goggle hit contained the words ‘Smokeless Zone’, and had some relationship with what could be burnt where. Most Direct.Gov links concerned giving up smoking - only one had anything to do with air pollution.

WIBBI the assumption was ‘The user knows what they are doing’?

Reply by on 02/20/06 at 3:20 pm
I am pretty sure Ruth Kelly’s answer only included costs to the CO. If I remember rightly, each dept was made to commit a certain level of additional funding for its ‘franchises’ (Pinder got ministers to sign up to it) - so total cost is way more than £4.4m. Each department put in money “per franchise” (eg parents, job seekers, older people) and each franchise had to commit its own cash to the e-Envoys office.

What we dont know is how much of that money ended up spent on e-envoy parties at the Century Club in Shaftesbury Ave (in which key OeE staff held shares I gather).

Reply by on 02/21/06 at 12:46 pm

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