Failures to meet basic standards for security, speed, mobile friendliness or accessibility are a rampant problem among the most popular federal websites finds a new study released by the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation.
The tech-policy think tank analysis of 297 websites found 92 percent deficient in at least one category when tested using publicly available tools.
A third failed the test for Secure Sockets Layer certificates — including the Department of Defense, the International Trade Administrationand the United States Courts— while 10 percent — among them the House of Representatives, the Speaker of the House of Representativesand the U.S. Forest Service— failed to enable Domain Name System Security.
Nearly a quarter of sites failed the speed test for desktops, while 64 percent failed the speed test for mobile devices. Some sites — including the General Services Administration, the Federal Trade Commission’s IdentityTheft.gov and the National Cancer Institute— failed both.
And an equal amount — including the International Trade Administrationand the Internal Revenue Service— failed the accessibility test for users with disabilities.
Websites that failed the mobile-friendliness test (a total of 41 percent) include the National Weather Service, the Treasury Departmentand the International Trade Administration.
Ranked based on the adherence to federal requirements and industry best practices, the websites performing best include health data.gov, healthfinder.gov, consumerfinance.gov, whitehouse.gov(Trump administration) and usembassy.gov.
The five worst-performing websites among those studied are usphs.gov, fmc.gov, osti.gov, trade.govand ipcc-wg2.gov.
The ITIF’s recommendations to policymakers include the following steps the White House, the Office of Management and Budget and Congress should take to ensure citizens can access government services and information online:
- The White House should launch website modernization “sprints” to fix known problems, mandate federal websites meet page load speed requirements and require agencies to monitor and share detailed website analytics.
- OMB should launch a website consolidation initiative.
- Congress should encourage non-executive agencies and branches of government to adopt federal standards and best practices.
- The White House and Congress should establish a capital fund for federal agencies to upgrade their information technology.
