Website Evaluation 2

Website:  USA.gov, Government made easy

Website Address: http://www.usa.gov/

Copyright date and/or Last Update:  I could not find any copyright information although the website was last updated on October 28, 2010.

Author/Organization Credentials:  The website is maintained by the U.S. General Services Administration's Office of Citizen Services and Innovative Technologies.  The funds to maintain the website come from an annual appropriation from the U.S. congress.

Web Site Design and Ease of Navigation:  While this website serves more as a web portal, the amount of information it provides access to is immense.  The websites accessibility is excellent and very user friendly.  The home page contains first and foremost a search bar located at the top center of the page.  In the upper right hand corner there are link to either change to language to Spanish or change the size of the text displayed on the page.  Just below the search box are four main tabs which contain an abundance of links to things such as government services and contact information for government employees and elected officials.  To the right of these links the website displays the five most currently searched topics from the site.  In the center of the page there is a slide show of common links displayed as well.  Just under this, at the bottom of the page are a few more informational links as well as links to things such as mobile apps and social media connectors.  The website has connectors to most of the popular social media sites such as; Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, various governmental blogs, and RSS feeds.  Although there is a great deal of information displayed on the main page the links are easily understandable and anyone with a small amount of understanding of the internet should have no problem with navigation.  The only downside I see in regards to navigation of the site is the sheer amount of information linked to it.  When utilizing this site you should make sure and know where it is you want to go before embarking on a search, otherwise you could easily get lost.   

Response and Recommendation for Use:  This website is an excellent way to find out information regarding the government.  This would be extremely useful when attempting to find nuggets of hard to find information regarding different governmental agencies.  Due to the advanced nature of this website I think it would be far more useful to high school students than lower grade students.  Its social media connectors will allow most teenagers to feel right at home when searching for information on this page.  I think this would be a great tool for any senior level student looking to write a more advanced research paper, or just looking for hard to find statistics and information regarding our government.  The nature of the site does not lend itself to in class instruction other than a quick navigation tutorial.