On a freezing December day in 2020, I realized the government had a technology problem. My mission companion and I had dropped by a friend’s house for a visit, but noticed sounds coming from a car in the driveway. Sure enough, our friend and her 15-year-old daughter were sitting inside, surrounded by piles of blankets and enough food for several days. As it did for many people, COVID-19 brought dramatic upheaval to her life, and she ended up unable to pay her bills. Technically, anticipating several weeks of bitter cold, the state of Indiana had passed a bill that would allow people like her to have emergency energy assistance. The assistance required her to fill out an online form–an interesting choice, considering that the program was aimed at rural people unable to pay bills, the very folks least likely to have reliable internet. When she went to the library to fill out the form, she found that she couldn’t submit the form due to problems with the sign-in process. The help for which she should have qualified was inaccessible.
We helped our friend sort out her energy crisis, but from that point on, I’ve been paying attention to how the best-intended government programs get foiled by the technology designed to implement them. I watched my grandmother go without social security payments because she struggled to navigate the SSA website; I met students whose abilities to pay for higher education were threatened by confusion with the FAFSA website; I myself spent hours trying to perform simple online tasks like renewing a driver’s license or registering to vote.
These anecdotes seem to match larger national trends: According to a 2023 White House report, 60% of government websites don’t meet accessibility standards [1], and Accenture found that 46% of people would use government services online if the technology was easier [2]. Many people find it challenging to navigate government websites, but the difficulties are especially salient for elderly people, non-English speakers, or folks with unreliable access to computers (as 45 percent of Federal websites are not mobile-friendly [3]).
Of course, the primary concern is getting Americans access to the services they need as government programs go digital. But these technological struggles also influence the way people see their government and its legitimacy. Political scientists generally agree that people's first-person experiences with government services shape their views of the government, for better or for worse. Even the details matter: a friendly election administrator can increase trust in the government as a whole, while a long wait to cast a ballot can decrease trust. As peoples' interactions with government become increasingly digital, the government’s best PR is a site that’s effective, helpful, and intuitive–and not just by public sector standards. People are comparing these government products to the very best tech from the private sector, and it’s historically been an unfavorable comparison.
Lately, Congress and Biden’s white house have made great strides to clean up the federal government’s digital act. In September 2023, the Biden administration issued orders for all federal websites to modernize. Specifically, all sites must now meet higher accessibility standards, officially identify themselves as government sites, use .gov domains, and comply with best practices for visual design. This builds on Congress’s 2018 21st Century IDEA Act. Pioneering these proposed solutions, the SSA website has been overhauled with larger text for its elderly audience, forms that can be filled out entirely online, and a complete Spanish translation.
These efforts to improve digital governance in the US have already improved many lives. Satisfaction with federal websites is up, as is trust in government programs. Still, there is work to do. At the federal level and beyond, other agencies need to follow in SSA’s footsteps. State and city websites in particular need to consider how to keep their services up-to-date. This will require significant changes in staff, budget, and general approach, but it is hard to imagine a better use of resources. From paying bills to applying for citizenship, people’s most important interactions with the government happen online. As public service goes digital, no one should be left behind.
