Citizens, federal employees, information technology administrators and agency executives all share a common need to locate information as quickly and efficiently as possible. Yet search technologies often produce a myriad of results and frequently few, if any, are the precise information people are seeking.
Agencies can and should inject efficient search technologies at the appropriate points across the enterprise. Obviously, there are solutions to simplify Internet-based searching. Moreover, you may want to consider a separate, role-based solution to support agency searching across an intranet. Finally, if your employees are heavy searchers, you may want to implement client-side tools that enable efficient crawling of multiple search engines simultaneously.
We recently surveyed some of the available search technologies to gauge progress. We find that search tools are improving, and we believe search will only grow more efficient. Keeping an eye on search tools progress will enable your agency to capitalize on ongoing improvements while keeping the budget in check. USA.gov: Something for everyone In January, a rebranded FirstGov emerged. Now called USA.gov (www.usa.gov), this Web-based search portal has several unique features that are well-suited for a variety of audiences.
From the starting page, a tabbed presentation provides easy access for the public, businesses and agency employees. New in the latest incarnation of this search portal is the ability to chat with a person in real time. Visitors to USA.gov can chat with government employees Monday through Friday from noon to 8 p.m. Eastern Time.
Underlying the USA.gov site are two complementary search-related technologies. The first is Vivisimo (www.vivisimo.com), a search technology that produces clustered results in a manner that makes it easier to pinpoint accurate information. The second is MSN search (www.msn.com).
Vivisimo, in particular, offers a useful differentiation when compared to other available tools. When searching on USA.gov, we found that search results were placed in clustered folders, which were then accessible by topical area, agency or source. The clustered approach made it much easier to locate relevant information.
The USA.gov portal — via Vivisimo and MSN — also offers the ability to return results found in a variety of sources, including frequently asked questions forms, audio materials, office documents and PDFs.
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