Renewal of the Government’S Website (Regjeringen.No – Government.No) (NO0042)

Regjeringen.no is a joint portal for all of the 17 Norwegian ministries and the Office of
the Prime Minister. The current technical solution is six years old.
The Government Administration Services (DSS), which is a subordinate agency of the
Ministry of Government Administration, Reform and Church Affairs, has started work
on improvement of regjeringen.no.
DSS wishes to
 improve search facilities on regjeringen.no
 make it easier for users to find relevant documents
 make it easier for users to find their way around and know exactly which
websites they are visiting
 create a more user-friendly design.

The objective is to deliver improvements and further development of the solution during 2013 and 2014. Ministries are taking part in the development work, and user testing is an important instrument.The changes must be made in such a way that they provide good support for the ongoing work of the ministries by introducing changes and restructuring step by step.
Ministries must be closely involved in the development work, and user testing and evaluation will be carried out continuously.

7. Renewal of the government’s website (regjeringen.no – government.no)

Commitment Text:

Regjeringen.no is a joint portal for all of the 17 Norwegian ministries and the Office of the Prime Minister. The current solution is six years old […].

DSS wishes to

•       improve search facilities on regjeringen.no

•       make it easier for users to find relevant documents

•       make it easier for users to find their way around and know exactly which websites they are visiting

•       create a more user-friendly design.

Commitment Description
The objective is to deliver improvements and further development of the solution during 2013 and 2014. Ministries are taking part in the development work, and user testing is an important instrument. The changes must be made in such a way that they provide good support for the ongoing work of the ministries by introducing changes and restructuring step by step. Ministries must be closely involved in the development work, and user testing and evaluation will be carried out continuously.

Key Impact Benchmark
The first improvements must be carried out by the end of 2014

Responsible institution: Government Administration Services (DSS)

Supporting institution(s): None

Start date: 1 January 1, 2013           End date: 31 December, 2014

Editorial note: The text of the commitments was abridged for formatting reasons. For the full text of the commitment, please see http://bit.ly/1QlVIja.

Policy Aim

The renewal of the government’s website is intended to improve the usability of regjeringen.no, a joint portal for 17 Norwegian ministries. According to official government documents on file with the IRM researcher, this commitment was created to respond to new communication practices among government actors, new developments in technology, media and web users’ demands, and shortcomings in former technical web solutions. By extension, this commitment aims to improve citizens’ access to information about government and ministry activities and policies.

Status

Mid-term: Complete

This commitment was complete at the mid-term, with a website redesign launched in December 2014. For more information, please see IRM Progress Report 2013-2014.

Did it open government?

Civic participation: Did not change
Access to information: Marginal

The improvements made to the website have enhanced the quality of information disclosed to the public and are considered to represent a marginal improvement in access to information. These improvements include the centralization of disparate information from several ministries and the publishing of archived consultation data, as described under commitment 1. The implementation of user testing in development of the new website is relevant to civic participation, but the IRM researcher does not consider this to have had a meaningful impact on civic participation in Norway.

Carried forward?

This commitment has not been carried forward in the Norwegian government’s third national action plan, which is available on the OGP website.^{[Note 43: ”Norway’s third action plan Open Government Partnership (OGP),” Ministry of Local Government and Modernisation, accessed September 4, 2016, http://www.opengovpartnership.org/wp-content/uploads/2001/01/Norway_2016-17_NAP.pdf.]}