The Government of Canada’s (GC’s) Web Usability Week event was an important milestone. For the first time a concerted effort was made to educate GC web teams and individuals about user-centered design: the principles, the methods, and the myriad of tools available, including the GC-led Web Experience Toolkit. (By way of contrast, the US government  has been providing web usability guidance to its web publishing community since 2001.)

Congratulations are due to the energetic group of public servants behind all of this, all of whom have fire in their eyes, and endless patience.

A portion of the Information Architecture and Content Findablity course that I delivered was focused on the challenge of dealing with ever-proliferating content. This is, to my mind, the most significant barrier to usable GC websites.

Everyone knows there’s too much of it, and many people believe that a high proportion of what’s been published could be removed from the web tomorrow without any discernible impact, and certainly no public outcry. For those of us who stare at this problem regularly, it’s a sad irony to witness vocal public demands for more and better government information, while our government’s web workers drown in a sea of apparently useless content.

Better findability is certainly part of the solution, but it’s nearly impossible to improve findability without knowing what’s there to be found, and who might be looking for it, and why.

For some attendees, this may have been the first time they were introduced to the idea of ROT (redundant, outdated and trivial) as a way of getting a handle on the problem. The need to “reduce the rot” is critical, particularly with the imminent Standard on Web Accessibility, which has implications for every single page of GC websites.

I fear, however, that many of the people who attended Web Usability Week are powerless to do much about this massive issue. There is an accountability gap in government web management, and its roots are easily identified: the GC continues to enforce, in policy and guidance, the notion that the web is primarily a communications vehicle, rather than the government’s most important and efficient way of delivering service to the public.

The result of this is that the vital function of web gate-keeping is performed almost wholly from a communicator’s perspective: Is this content on message? Does it follow our (often antiquated and print-based) publishing rules? OK, go. And we hope you are satisfied with the efficiency of our web publishing services; please come again. We are happy to publish anything, but we specialize in inflated puffery that tells Canadians about our accomplishments without regard for their goals or interests.

Since that’s how most web content gets published in the first place, taking it down requires a reversal and transformation of accountabilities that many institutions are simply incapable of. While web groups struggle to shift the responsibility for the care and feeding (and removal) of content to those who create it, their senior managers continue to expect the same people to deliver an efficient publish-on-demand service.

Where is the accountability for web-as-service? Who’s got the authority (and the will, and the knowledge) to manage a web publishing model that enforces web gate-keeping on the basis of user needs, usability, web appropriateness, and service outcomes? Is it realistic to expect the DG of Communications to be that person? Or anyone whose primary job function is communications, for that matter?

This is the point at which user-centered hearts turn in hope to web governance. It’s clearly lacking, but it is massively difficult. Just as an example: who in the organization is accountable for search effectiveness? Communications? “Business-side” content providers? IT? Information management? Web interface designers?

Correct answer: all of the above. So how is that going? Now, ratchet this question up to whole-of-government search and ask it again.

The response that’s needed is a more profound shift in thinking. There are too many strategic accountabilities (like service strategy and design, content strategy, and usability) that are currently homeless. They’re important. They need a place at the table, and some real authority.

I’d love to be proven wrong, so if you have an example of a GC organization that’s got this covered, please let me know.