icegov2012 proceedings

are doing a good job overall in regards to their websites, while
they are mostly doing a good job only in including the legally
required information. As noted above users might acknowledge
that the website provides the information required by law, and yet
not feel their transparency and right-to-know needs are being
fulfilled.
The study conducted by Sepúlveda [6] suggests that quality of the
law (i.e., how advanced the law is in terms of access to
information and democratization) is not related to her
transparency website index, in which she includes more
technology related aspects. In other words, she shows that there is
no relationship between how good the transparency law is and the
quality of its transparency website.
Lastly, the minimal information demanded by the LFTAIP, falls
short within what a government is expected by its citizens to
publish in order to be regarded as transparent. The emphasis
placed in content targeted to fight corruption resulted in a tight
and unattractive set of information for ordinary citizens as can be
observed both in Parametría [2] and the Comparative Law Journal
[3] surveys.
The framework that shall be developed when this work is
completed will emphatically seek to raise the bar of what is
considered the minimum mandatory information that a
government should share with the citizens.
2.4 Usability and Other Types of Friendliness
It is important for any website that the users remain in their
websites for more than 10 seconds before they click-away. This
concept of usability, as defined by Nielsen [12], parts from the
assumption that the Internet user has thousands of options to
choose from when browsing.
Governments allocate a lot of money and other resources to
organize, sort and publish information on their websites just to
discover that they are not used because the information is not
displayed in an attractive way.
The topic of usability is noted in Sepulveda´s [6] study and in the
yearly ranking [13] published by the magazine Política Digital
issued in Mexico. Both studies develop an index to evaluate
exclusively Transparency websites, and suggest specifications of a
good web site, which include usability and accessibility.
The issue of an easy-to-understand language is mentioned in
Sepulveda´s study, but it is specified that it cannot be evaluated.
The study refers to the Mexican Federal Government initiative of
citizen´s language (lenguaje ciudadano), which calls all the
agencies for action to provide information in a simpler and lessbureaucratic
manner.
The trustworthiness of the information provided in the website is
mentioned in both studies, yet no repeatable and neutral
measurement is provided to evaluate it. According to the studies,
trustworthiness always depends on the evaluator´s perception.
The framework will incorporate the usability and accessibility
aspects of previous studies.
2.5 Current Examples of Focused
Transparency
In 2011, the Mexican Federal Government launched an initiative
called Focus on Socially Useful Information [4][14], through
85
which it encourages its agencies to publish more information than
that required by law. The information provided should include
information that citizens might find useful in their every-day lives.
This initiative defines Focused or Socially Useful Transparency as
“providing valuable information to the citizen so that she can
make better informed decisions about procedures and services, or
in aspects that affect her every day life, to prevent public risks or
solve problems from the social sphere.”
The Secretary of Public Administration (Secretaría de la Función
Pública) has already elaborated guidelines with criteria that all
agencies must incorporate when updating information in their
respective websites and transparency sections. A special call is
made to include information beyond what is required by law, as
well as to rephrase, summarize and reorganize the information
that is produced within a bureaucratic environment to
communicate it in a simpler way.
Another attempt to provide more valuable information to citizen´s
has been that of Mexico City´s government of Focused
Transparency [15]. The approach in this case has been to define a
set of thematic websites that publish all the information related to
that topic, arranged and displayed in a question-and-answer
fashion. For example, what is environmental policy…? What is
the impact of CO2 emissions in my life…? How can I become
part of the solution to environmental problems…? [16]
Another initiative was presented by Mexico City´s Governement
where the strategy was described as groups of information
packages:
Table 1. Information Packages
Procurement Environment
Transportation
traffic
and Health
Procedures and Employment and
Services
Education
Social Programs Tourism
Budget Citizen´s requests and
legal petitions
Civil Protection Culture
Public Works Business
So far, the environment, transportation and procedures and
services focused transparency websites have been created.
3. METHODOLOGY AND RESEARCH
The framework suggested in this paper will be a compilation of
findings from the different issues analyzed throughout the
literature, mainly:
o The need to have an accountability approach that goes
beyond the mere provision of mandatory information and
incorporates the justification component;
o The need to provide a content skeleton that can be widely
accepted, because it adjusts to the essence and raison-de-etre
of government, as well as to the nature of human beings as
human beings and not just citizen; and
o The need to incorporate usability and other websites
friendliness criteria as an important element.