There’s a lot of buzz on the Hill and here at Fireside21 about the Gold Mouse Awards.  We know that you’re all taking a close look at your websites to see where you can make improvements for this year’s evaluations and we’d love to help you! This is the first in a three-part series dedicated to helping your office get ready for this year’s awards.

The most important thing to remember about the Gold Mouse Awards is that they aren’t about having a flashy design or a brand new feature that no one else has.  The Congressional Management Foundation (CMF) is looking for websites that do an outstanding job of communicating with and advocating for constituents.  The bottom line–the Golden Mouse is about CONTENT!

There are four areas of the CMF rating criteria that you can initially focus on when evaluating your website:

1. Usability – How easy is it for visitors to find what they need on your website?

Congressman Geoff Davis was recognized by the CMF for having an easily-navigable website and you can turn to that site for an idea of what great organization looks like. His website’s navigation tools, menu sidebars, and content organization were highlighted for being very user-friendly. We love it when our clients are acknowledged for their great work!

A good way to think about your website’s usability is to put yourself in the position of different members of your audience. 1) If you want to do a search through content on the website, is there a search engine on the site that is easy to find and use?  2) If you’re a constituent who needs information on casework, how many “clicks” does it take to find out what you need and who you should contact to start a case?  3) If you’re a constituent or member of the press who wants to read all of the most recent news items on a specific issue, how easy are they to find?  4) If you have a comment or question for the congressperson, how long does it take to find his out where/how to send them an email?

• What you can do: Since you’re very familiar with the layout and organization of content on your homepage and internal pages, you could even ask a friend or family member to go through and find specific things on your website. Get feedback from someone who is less familiar with your website to see if they can find things quickly or if they can’t find certain things at all! After you’ve evaluated the usability of your website, you can make changes as necessary.  If you realize that there are some very important internal pages to your website that take a lot of “clicks” to find, you may want to feature those links on your homepage in a Quick Links section.  You could also develop a new page on your website that lays out where people can find some specific information that receives a lot of traffic on your website.  The web stats of your website will be very helpful in seeing which pages people seek the most.

2. Timeliness – Is the content on your website up to date?

While it’s usually a concern to keep your Newsroom up to date with press releases and articles, there are other areas that timeliness applies to as well. Issue statements, vote rationales, accomplishments, video, and audio updates are evaluated by the CMF in addition to your news items.

• What you can do: Keeping all of these sections of your website up to date will take a combined effort by staffers in your office. It will likely be overwhelming to consider everything at once, but you can determine which areas need the most work (perhaps your issue statements haven’t been updated for this session of Congress) and start there.  Even quickly checking to see if your THOMAS search box is searching the current Congress will put you on the right path for success in this area.

3. Information on issues – Do you have up-to-date information on current issues?

A lot of visitors to your website will be looking for your Member’s stance on various issues. Does your website include information about the district/state issues that are important to your Member?  Is there information about the work your Member is doing with regard to these issues? According to the CMF, the average Member website scored 3.6 out of 5 upon an evaluation of their issue pages.  Congressman Randy Forbes was recognized by the CMF for demonstrating informative issue pages.  In addition to having up to date issue statements, the Congressman’s website also draws attention to his work on specific issues including relevant letters, sponsored and cosponsored legislation, and votes.

• What you can do: Beefing up your issue pages does take a bit of work, but you already have all of the information at your fingertips–it’s just a matter of gathering relevant information for your visitors to find.  Look through your press releases and files and make sure that you’ve “checked off” which issues they are related to.  Browse through the Member’s vote record to see which votes should be highlighted on various issue pages.  Pulling all of this information together on issue pages helps your visitors see not only your Member’s stance on an issue, but also what is being done to promote that position.

4. Constituent services and casework – Do your constituent services and casework sections have information about the processes involved?

Generally speaking, your Constituent Services and Casework sections aren’t areas that require constant upkeep like some of the other areas of your website, but they shouldn’t be neglected.  They should inform your constituents about how your office can assist them and what happens when they reach out to you.  According to the CMF, nearly 50% of Member websites did not have information on how the casework process works.  This is very easy to remedy!

• What you can do: In order to improve these sections, you could consider the 5 W’s (and an H) we all learn about in school. WHO is visiting your website looking for assistance, WHAT kind of assistance will they need, WHEN can your office intervene and provide help, WHERE should your constituent look for more information, WHY is reaching out to your office a good idea, and HOW does the process work?

Once you go through all of those areas of your website, you’re all done, right?  Not quite, but don’t worry—Fireside21 has you covered.  Be on the lookout for the next two posts in our CMF Gold Mouse series so you can get your website in the race for Gold!  Also, feel free to check out our previous posts on the CMF Gold Mouse awards.

I recently hired a contractor to build a bookshelf in my house and learned an old adage: “Speed, quality, cost – pick any two.”

A project can be completed fast and cheap but with lower quality. It can be finished cheap and at a high quality, but it won’t be finished any time soon. Or the job can be finished quickly and with high quality, but that comes at a cost. In short, one is generally sacrificed for the other two.

Though achieving all three elements is a challenge – one that cannot always be overcome – it is something Fireside21 strives to deliver. We often find that the best solution can be achieved when the real challenge is considered by both client and vendor.

In our software field, vendors frequently take direction but don’t always work hand in hand with clients to identify the best solution. This is a mistake. Partnership is the best path to real solutions, with client and vendor working together to identify a solution. This collective effort requires communication, and as partners, our first step is to understand the challenge facing the team.

Take an example: A U.S. Representative came to us with a request to build a new contact form allowing voters from outside their district to submit comments; this was in addition to the constituent comment form already on the representative’s website. The client had specifications for how they wanted their contact landing page to work to direct constituents and non-constituents to the correct form. Having laid out their solution, the client wanted to know how quickly we could complete this new form, landing page, etc.

Rather than rattle off rates and availability, we began with a question: “What result are you looking to produce?”

The aim, they said, was for the representative to accept comments from all voters, and the challenge was keeping constituent comments distinct from the certain overflow from outside the district. Now we were getting somewhere.

Michael Lyons suggested an alternative solution. On the website, we could adjust the current form to remove the constituent zip code restriction and add a hidden field recording whether the commenter was a district resident. This hidden code would allow messages to be sorted according to the client’s requirement. Plus, there wouldn’t be any need to add confusing information and separate form links to their contact landing page.

Problem solved. Cheaper, faster and better.

Had we simply followed our client’s instruction, we could not have achieved this result. Their initial project idea would have taken longer, cost more and since time is always a factor on Capitol Hill, quality could have suffered. By working together and communicating, however, we were able to deliver a high quality solution quickly and at a reasonable price.

We’ve built a name for ourselves as a team that offers real solutions for congressional offices, a vendor that is a partner, collectively working to better link lawmakers with their constituents. Our emphasis on partnership and communication may seem an obvious must, but it’s not something you come across every day.

Congresswoman Clarke’s new website features a tabbed multimedia section that helps visitors quickly find recent photos and videos that feature the Congresswoman’s work. The website also highlights familiar landmarks from New York’s 11th District in a dynamic banner.