For a lot of people, the official city website is the point from which they define where they need to go or what they need to do for a certain solution to be achieved. And refugees are no exception.
Government websites serve a variety of helpful functions. It’s crucial to remember that citizens visit government websites for relevant, educational, and, in some cases, urgent information. Today, people expect to find everything online, which means answers to their questions as well. For this, I analyzed and compared the official London city [1] and Vienna city websites. [2]
In 2022 a new London city website was launched. They conducted user interviews (with Londoners) to create a clean, accessible design. [3]
What you instantly see on the main page:
– Information about what Mayor and Assembly do
– Upcoming events
– Priorities
– News
– Tweets from Mayor
But every piece of information has its own block, which makes it easier to understand what you’re looking at. Compared to the Vienna city website, the first thing we see here is – a lot of information in different places.
For example, it would be more difficult for a Ukrainian refugee to spot the information about help because every font looks almost the same (so there is no recognition of what is the headline, regular text, important news, etc.) and photos chosen for the specific information don’t actually represent them.
So, if you need to find a specific answer to your question, you would probably need to go through a lot of text and download a lot of PDFs + the information, that will be available to you depends on the language you choose, which can make a person go through more “work” just to find what they need.
Vienna city website doesn’t seem to have its information regularly updated, whereas the UK government uses the London city website to update about their work, what they do for people, and their plans. It is even possible to watch videos about their strategic plans for the future of the city.
ITIF [4] confirmed that 41% of government websites fail the usability test, meaning that these sites had a substantial number of known problems that might prevent someone with a disability from using the site. This is important because the website stores important information for everyday life, and provides help and if it’s difficult for a person to get from point A to B, then it doesn’t reach its main goal. When people turn to government websites, they need to receive the answer as soon as possible, especially if they are a refugee. So, the answer is – yes, government websites can definitely affect certain aspects of life, how easy or difficult you will find your way into living in the city/country.
References:
[1] https://www.london.gov.uk
[2] https://www.wien.gv.at/english/
[3] https://www.london.gov.uk/who-we-are/city-hall-blog/welcome-new-londongovuk-beta
[4] https://itif.org
