Opaque Transparency

I have written before about transparency and how that is translated into action. In one post, I cited the Government Accountability Office’s report on transparency. To reiterate, transparency is the public’s access to information. I have also written about the presentation of information recently when I compared EPA web information to the New York Times handling of very similar information. Thinking about the citizen point of view is important to designing the presentation.


Today there was commentary in the Oregonian about the opaqueness of government transparency as it is currently delivered on http://www.recovery.gov/ . The GAO has now started to audit transparency. See page 33 of this report. They note as positive that the Office of Financial Stability on its http://www.financialstability.gov/ site has added a usability survey to help them improve the quality of their transparency. The GAO itself uses a similar survey when you search their website and I have to admit I have seen steady improvement in their website and its usability.