In June, the Sunlight Foundation released a mock-up redesign of the Supreme Court's website. Our intent was to provoke discussion about the kinds of information the Court should publish on its site, and how that information should be organized. We succeeded beyond our expectations, hearing from professional court watchers, legal practitioners, programmers, and the general public.

Today, we are releasing an updated redesign, narrowing its focus to steps the Court can take right now. The timing could not be better, because the Court is currently considering how to redesign its website. Hopefully the suggestions below can serve as a guide. (Our June blogpost set forth the key ideas we followed when building the redesign.)

Website Tour

We focused our efforts on designing four webpages, but the site's navigation includes eight different kinds of pages. Those eight pages are: the Homepage, About the Court, Cases, Rules, Calendar, Visiting the Court, News, and Contact. We mocked-up the Homepage, About the Court page, Cases age, and a page containing details about an individual case docket.

Homepage

This page has changed slightly from our original design. It contains the Court's argument calendar, recent opinions, upcoming arguments, and recent news. On this page, as on all of them, there's also basic information on how to contact the Court. Our vision of the Court's homepage contrasts significantly with the Court's current static homepage.

Since our earlier draft, we have added additional explanatory language. However, the most significant update is the adoption of the Court's exact phrasing for the issue before the Court, and removing the “box score” for the Court's opinions. The purpose of the change was to simplify the Court's task regarding making this information available. Perhaps in the future, however, information adapted from the Court's syllabus (i.e., the summary of the case) or by the Public Information Office could be used here.

About the Court

The About the Court page provides a good overview of the Supreme Court. It identifies the Justices and links to their biographies – including information about all former Justices. It also provides a snapshot of the Term's statistics (cases granted, etc.), and contains information about the building, how the Court hears cases, and other general information about the Court. This page hasn't changed much from our earlier draft, with the exception of cleaning up the text around the term statistics. By contrast, the Supreme Court's website provides only a small percentage of this information, and it's locked away in difficult-to-browse PDF files.

Cases

The Cases page has changed significantly from our earlier draft. The page's name itself has been changed from “Court Proceedings” to “Cases” so that it is more intuitive. Users are able to view all the proceedings during any period of the Court's history. We've upgraded the search function to allow users to refine their search by “filing stage.” In addition, we've made it easy for users to download multiple opinions at once, in PDF or XML format. (The advanced search feature should allow bulk downloads of court filings as well.) The current Supreme Court website only goes back 5 years, doesn't allow searching by case stage, doesn't permit bulk downloads, and doesn't make opinions available in XML format.

Individual Case Docket

Our Individual Case Docket page, which contains all of the information about a particular case, has been somewhat reorganized. Just as before, it contains the question presented and case status at the top of the page. Just as before, it contains proceedings and orders of the Court, in chronological order, with links to each of the filings. We've kept the lower court opinions at the bottom of the page, and moved the list of counsel who are filing before the Court to the bottom of the page as well.

This contrasts significantly with what the Supreme Court currently makes available. Although its most recent opinions are available online, its website doesn't contain any of the merit or certiorari briefs by the parties. It also does not include opinions by lower courts. The information that it does make available is hard to read and navigate.

Remaining Pages

We did not build mock-ups for the following pages, but their descriptions can be found in the June blogpost. Here's a quick summary, with explanation for when we have made changes.

• Rules. We renamed our “Court Procedure” page “Rules” because we thought it would be more easily grasped by users. This page focuses on how the parties before the Court interact with the Court.
• Calendar. Provides detailed information about when Court proceedings and other relevant events will take place.
• Visiting the Court. Contains basic information about visiting the court.
• News. This would be where the Court aggregates all of its internally-generated information so that it is easily accessible to readers in one place. The page should include syllabi and links to decisions, speeches given by the Justices, press releases and media advisories, and other Court events.
• Contact: Basic information on how to contact the Court

We've heard from you on a wide range of issues that we haven't discussed above. They include how the Court should write and publish its syllabi, making contemporaneous video available from its proceedings, and how the opinions themselves should appear (including using hyperlinks). Those issues were not addressed in this mock-up, but we want to acknowledge them here.

We also were pleasantly surprised that a number of technologists expressed a willingness to assist the Court in redesigning its site. The Court has said it will develop its new website in house, but hopefully technologists can take the information that the Court will hopefully be making available online and put it to interesting new uses.

We hope that the Supreme Court will consider our mock-up as it redesigns its website. We also welcome the opportunity to discuss our redesign, and all of your feedback, with them.

As always, if you have any questions or comments, please post them online or contact us directly.

Daniel Schuman, Policy Counsel

Ali Felski, Senior Labs Designer

Last week, U.S. Rep. Mike Honda (Calif.) guest blogged on O’Reilly Radar and asked, "how can Congress take advantage of Web 2.0 technologies to transform the relationship between citizens and government?" That’s quite a refreshing attitude for a lawmaker to take, for sure. On top of that he acknowledged how Congress needs to adopt a dramatic shift in perspective before that need can be met. “Instead of databases becoming available as a result of Freedom Of Information Act requests, government officials should be required to justify why any public data should not be freely available to the taxpayers who paid for its creation." That’s music to my ears. And then he asked what Web 2.0 features he should add to his Web site.

This week, Vanessa Fox responded to Honda by writing that new features are not nearly as important as making government Web sites search-engine friendly. This alone “would absolutely transform the relationship between citizens and government and make an amazing array of public data available.”

Vanessa gives a fascinating account of why government data, while technically online, is not optimized to be found by search engines and thus, might as well not exist at all. She has spoken with people who manage government Web sites, dedicated civil servants who spend considerable resources on making sure their sites have valuable, accurate information. But they spend little time ensuring their sites interact well with the major search engines. “That's like building a brick and mortar store with shiny new marble floors and high-quality, low-priced merchandise and keeping the front door locked,” she wrote. Google estimated that, as of 2007, about half of the content government agencies make available online doesn't appear in search results at all due to how the Web sites are constructed.

Crazy, huh? Now why is this? She says that commercial sites have a monetary interest in being search-engine friendly. Government sites are geared toward content, rarely for traffic and monetary goals. The priority has not been giving citizens the ablity to easily search government Web sites and find information.

Hopefully, this is changing. Vanessa notes that Katie Stanton recently left Google to head the Obama administration’s citizen participation efforts. Improving the “searchability” of online government data through the major search engines is a top expressed goal. And Vivek Kundra, Obama’s new CIO, has plans to create data.gov as the go-to site for government data.

Vanessa encourages us to check back with her. She promises to flush out more details of how government can set up short and long term improvements. But she adds, the first step is “understanding that making government sites search engine-friendly is key to improved transparency, increased public data accessibility, and a ‘Web 2.0’ relationship between citizens and government that brings positive change.”

Here’s an exciting development! Last week, I blogged about an encouraging report by Doug Belzer at Federal Computer Week, where he wrote about how Twitter, blogs and other Web 2.0 tools are revolutionizing government business. The General Services Administration had determined that Twitter’s standard terms of service is compatible with federal use.

Two days ago, Doug has another exciting article, this time in Government Computer News, about GSA announcing that it has signed agreements with Flickr, YouTube, Vimeo and blip.tv that will allow federal agencies to use new-media tools. Agencies can now begin using these tools to better communicate, network and share information via the Web.

Chris Snyder at Wired's Epicenter blog termed the move, "Web 2.0, meet dot-gov. Dot-gov, this is Web 2.0." He's right in calling it a "big step" for agencies attempting to become more transparent and interactive with citizens. "Now that the bureaucratic brush has been cleared, government agencies will be free, for example, to embed videos and create photo widgets that citizens can embed into their MySpace or Facebook pages," he writes. An example of a government agency already using Web 2.0 tools successfully is the Centers for Disease Control alerting the public about the recent peanut better product recall.

Chris quotes Andrew Rasiej, founder of Personal Democracy Forum and Sunlight's senior technology advisor, as saying it's another example of why it really matters who’s president of the United States. "Because we have the country's first tech president, the speed at which the government can catch up with the private sector and use of technology is exponential."

Each individual agency will determine their own guidelines for how their employees can use the tools. “The new agreements make it easier for the government to provide official information to citizens via their method of choice,” according to GSA’s administrator, who is in discussions with other new-media providers. They started with these four because of their popularity and large number of users.

We're excited about this development. You should be too.

Last week Doug Belzer at Federal Computer Week has an encouraging article about how Twitter, blogs and other Web 2.0 tools are revolutionizing government business. Belzer writes how government managers and elected officials are using social media to network and collaborate online, quickly connecting with audiences like never before.

“If they’re looking for information about an obscure contract vehicle, they can post a message on a messaging service such as Twitter and see if someone can help them learn about it,” he writes. “Or if they run across a particularly useful piece of information on a community-created Web page, they can give it a high rating so others can find it easily in the future.”

Belzer gives five examples of how bureaucrats have used social media “to take care of business,” contrasting this new and effective strategy with how they would have approached the project or problem before Web 2.0 tools were available and in use, with less impressive results.

One of Belzer’s examples, as a un-recovered peanut butter fan, is near and dear to my heart. When salmonella-tainted peanut butter was found in a number of food products, it was the responsibility of the Centers for Disease Control and the Food and Drug Administration to get the word out about the recalls. In the past, the agencies would attempt to raise the alarm by employing press releases, posts on Web sites, toll-free telephone lines, but the agencies never knew how effective these efforts were at alerting the public. But with this emergency the agencies are using Web 2.0 tools, such as a widgets, blogs, Twitter feeds and other social networks, as well as other social media outreach efforts. The CDC first offered their peanut-butter widget in early February. And since then, Belzer reports, about 16,000 sites, including newspapers, health agencies and personal Web sites, posted the widget, resulting in more than 6.8 million views. “That viral effect is really pretty amazing,” he quotes a CDC information officer as saying. “The reach of the widget grows exponentially.”

The promise of Government 2.0 is just beginning to dawn.

SocialFeds.com, a  site I've been following  recently about how the federal government does Web 2.0, is the work of Sara Cope, a Dayton, Ohio, -based U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs employee and Gov 2.0 enthusiast. Last November, she started compiling a list of blogs maintained by the various federal agencies.

Yesterday, she twittered that she’s updating the list and asked for fellow Twitter users to send her blogs to add. Currently, here’s her list of 40-plus blogs:

AIDS.gov Blog – The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services provides this blog as a part of the AIDS.gov website to provide information on the uses of new media for the HIV/AIDS community. Air Force Live - Official U.S. Air Force blog from its public affairs agency. Arctic Chronicles – A journal that documents one of the most unexplored areas in the world, the Arctic, as scientists conduct expeditions to map the seafloor. This is a collaborative effort between the U.S. and Canada. ASY Live Blog – This blog is an extension of the Department of Defense America Supports You program, highlights the support supplied by citizens and corporations nationwide to service men and women in uniform. Big Read Blog – National Endowment for the Arts literature director blogs regularly about promoting reading. CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) Injury Center Director’s View –Ileana Arias, director of the CDC Injury Center, blogs to foster public discussion about injury and violence prevention. Congressional Budget Office Director’s Blog – formerly run by Peter R. Orszag, until recently the director of the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), but now the new director of the Office of Management and Budget. Orszag used the blog as an additional way to communicate with Congress and the public. Corps e-spondence – U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ Chief of Engineers and Commanding General Lieutenant General Robert L. Van Antwerp blogs about all things relevant to the Corps, including their many missions in service to the Nation, leadership, selfless service and people. Dipnote – This blog offers the public an alternative source to mainstream media for U.S. foreign policy information and the opportunity to discuss important foreign policy issues with senior State Department officials. Energy Savers Blog – The Energy Savers Blog provides a place for consumers to learn about and discuss energy efficiency and renewable technologies at home, on the road, and in the workplace. Evolution of Security – Employees of the Transportation Security Administration blog to facilitate an ongoing dialogue on innovations in security, technology and the checkpoint screening process. Eye Level – This Smithsonian American Art Museum blog covers American art and the ways it reflects American history and culture. Fast Lane – This blog from the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) provides a forum for discussing the nation’s transportation system and making announcements about future projects. Contributors will include Secretary Peters, other senior officials from DOT, and guest bloggers. Future Digital System – U.S. Government Printing Office blog about the Future Digital System program that will be a world-class information life-cycle management system. GLOBE Program – Dr. Peggy LeMone, chief scientist of the Global Learning and Observations to Benefit the Environment (GLOBE), shares her comments and thoughts on science topics through this blog. Gov Gab – Gov Gab’s seven bloggers share practical, useful tips and information from the federal government to help you make life a little simpler. Sample posts cover saving gas, smart shopping, weeding out poison ivy, checking your credit report and helping your pre-teen build self-esteem. Read along each weekday and comment and share your own experiences. Great Lakes Earth Day Challenge Blog – Employees from the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Region 5 office in Chicago blog from April 1 to May 9, 2008 to share personal insights into how they approach Earth Day, and how Great Lakes communities are participating in the Earth Day Challenge. The “Challenge” to communities around the Great Lakes is to collect 1 million pounds of electronics (e-waste) and (the equivalent of) 1 million pills of unwanted or unused medications. Greenversations – The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) blog is authored by EPA employees who share their perspective on environmentalism and personal experiences in protecting and improving our nation’s water, land, and air. Health and Human Services Department Blog – A blog about health and the related challenges that face United States. HHS Peanut Recall Blog - This new blog includes posts from CDC, FDA and HHS representative on the current Salmonella outbreak. Health Marketing Musings – A blog about research, science, and practice in health marketing and communication, social marketing, information technology, public health partnerships, and more with Jay Bernhardt, director of CDC’s National Center for Health Marketing. Homeland Security Leadership Journal – a blog about working to protect the American people, building an effective emergency preparedness and response capability, enforcing immigration laws, and promoting economic prosperity. InfoFarm – The National Agricultural Library blogs about what they do and your world of agriculture, food, nutrition, animal care, and the environment. Library of Congress Blog – The Library’s director of communications highlights news and collections from the Library of Congress. Military Health System Blog – Department of Defense leadership discusses the future of the U.S. military health system. Millenium Challenge Corporation (MCC) CEO’s Blog – Through this blog, Ambassador John J. Danilovich, the MCC CEO, directly communicates with the public to offer his first-hand perspective of MCC programs and the results that assistance to partner countries is producing on the ground for the benefit of the world’s poor. Mount Rainier National Park Volunteers Blog – Get the latest news about the volunteer program at Mount Rainier National Park in Washington state. NASA Goddard CIO Blog – NASA Goddard chief information officer blogs about technology, leadership, and being a CIO. National African HIV AIDS Initiative (NAHI) Blog – Margaret Korto, a member of the Health and Human Services Office of Minority Health Resource Center’s HIV Capacity Building Team, hosts this blog as a way for communities in Seattle, New York, Massachusetts, Atlanta and Washington, D.C., to communicate and gather ideas about upcoming health summits. National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) Science Blog – This blog helps NIOSH to fulfill it’s mission of translating scientific research into practice. It also provides a forum for NIOSH partners and the public to present ideas to NIOSH scientists and each other while engaging in scientific discussion. National Museum of the Air Force – Blog posts from the public about their experiences at the National Museum of the Air Force. National Parks – The National Park Foundation connects with Americans in an effort to enhance their experiences visiting National Parks. Navy Department Chief Information Officer Blog – Robert Carey, CIO for the Department of the Navy, blogs about matters related to information management and information technology and how they impact the Navy Department. Peace Corps Volunteer Journals – Blogs about experiences of Peace Corps volunteers from around the globe. Public Health Matters - Bloggers at the CDC write about public health. Pushing Back – Office of National Drug Control Policy blog to educate Americans about illegal drugs and the latest international, federal, state, and local efforts to reduce drug use. Pushing the Envelope - Office of Inspector General, United States Postal Service blog to inform the public of little known services, tips, and other related information. Returning Service Members - Blog by the Department of Veterans Affairs to help you keep up with VA’s outreach efforts to our returning service members. Smithsonian Institution – Bloggers offer insights and information about Smithsonian Institution exhibitions, events, collections, research projects, and more. Take Pride in America: The Blog – Take Pride in America, a national partnership program aimed at increasing volunteer service on America’s public lands, hosts this blog to empower volunteers from every corner of America to maintain and enhance our natural, cultural, and historical sites. U.S. European Command - A clearinghouse of the U.S. European’s Command’s senior leader’s updates on issues important at EUCOM. Welcome to the Fast Lane - Blog from the U.S. Secretary of Transportation featuring commentary and observations from the secretary and administrators, contributions by guest bloggers from outside the department, and breaking news.

Elizabeth Newell, at GovExec.com, writes about how federal agencies are beginning to stick their toes in the social media pool. It’s beginning to dawn on agency leaders that when citizens search for government information, they will want to use the same systems they do in their everyday lives. But as David Herbert at the National Journal writes (reposted here by NextGov.com), many agencies still struggle to make connections online.

Newell cites the GSA’s GovGab, the Defense Department's roundtable with military bloggers, and she referenced the growing list of federal agencies that post on Twitter. Herbert points to the TSA is an agency that gets it. The Evolution of Security blog is an effort by TSA to explain the bizarre airport security system and offer tips for travelers. The agency realizes that in the online world, “if you build it they will come” is not the way things work. At airport security lines they advertise their site with signs saying “Got Feedback?” The site has been up for a year and posts average 3,000 page views and 100 comments.

NextGov.com has posted a "Best Practices for Government Web sites," where they highlight five agencies that pay careful attention to what their users want to see and do online. NextGov.com consulted with online experts who told them, that meeting the needs of the public will always be the foundation for any great government site. The five agencies they selected are: NASA, Library of Congress, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Social Security Administration, and TSA. They have an interactive "Best Practices" presentation where they explain why they picked each agency.

Despite this progress, bureaucratic barriers and inefficiencies still exist to further governmental embrace of social media. For instance, government agencies get hung up on terms of service agreements, legal jurisdiction and issues over advertising. And as Herbert reports, many agencies have put content online, but much of it is useless, boring and unable to attract an audience. He quotes Sheila Campbell, co-chair of the Federal Web Managers Council, "It doesn't make sense to be using Web 2.0 tools for the sake of using Web 2.0…(they need) to make sure they're developing compelling videos that resonate with their target audiences."

Newell quotes several agency communication and technology leaders as being encouraged by the rhetoric coming from the Obama administration about service, citizen engagement and transparency. And they are hopeful that the administration’s pro-new media attitude will further speed up the embrace of these tools by their agencies. As one observer is quoted as saying, "We really hope . . . the White House from its bully pulpit says, 'This is OK,' and gives agencies the comfort level to make that leap of faith."

Herbert quotes Micah Sifry, co-founder of the Personal Democracy Forum and senior technology advisor for Sunlight, about the federal government has a long way to go in embracing Web 2.0, but he remains optimistic. "Right now you can point to some failures of some interesting experiments, but six months to a year from now things will be very different," he said. "And it's about time."

The European Commission’s ePractice portal is teaming up with some Europe-based social media consultants to host a workshop on how to promote user-driven and developed Web 2.0 tools to further public services. They will focus mainly on examples of what is being done currently to actually make government more responsive, as opposed to what might be done theoretically. The workshop will be held on March 16th in Brussels.

The organizers are responding to the dramatic rise over the past three years in user-driven, Web 2.0-style initiatives to make government more open, transparent and accountable. They rightfully point to TheyWorkForYou, the product of Sunlight’s friends at the United Kingdom-based MySociety.com, as a good example. The organizers see a growing gap between the innovation culture underlying these initiatives and government approaches to information technology innovation in public services.

The folks behind this conference  want to show how Web 2.0 projects are changing public services now, in the hope that this will further encourage government to adopt the tools and mindset and they want to create an interactive and hands-on kind of meeting. It will include short presentation of projects, with more lengthy and informal discussions between participants.

The European Commission’s ePractice is hosting the meeting and participation is free. And they are counting on word of mouth to get the word out.

Hat Tip: David Osimo.

There are already a number of Executive Branches that are using Web 2.0 tech to reach out to the broader community of people. Ellen pointed out that the Veterans Administration is launching a serious Web 2.0 presence. NextGov reports that, along with the VA, the Environmental Protection Agency is gearing up to get into the Web 2.0 world, with the helpful push of President Obama's memorandum on transparency:

Agencies can use blogs to improve public participation in the federal regulatory process, which dovetails with language in the Obama memo, said Lisa Schlosser, director of the Office of Information Collection at EPA. She cited the language in the memo that directed agencies to "offer Americans increased opportunities to participate in policymaking and to provide their government with the benefits of their collective expertise and information."

The Office of Information Collection manages environmental information and also runs the governmentwide e-regulation Web site, regulations.gov. A regulatory blog could meet the spirit of Obama's push for participatory policymaking, resulting "in more public interaction in the rule making process," Schlosser said.

The office also manages EPA's Freedom Of Information Act requests, and the memo, as well as Obama's directive on FOIA, which emphasizes the use of technology to respond to information requests from the public, will require agencies to take a proactive approach to the public release of information, she said.

Schlosser is identifying FOIA requests that have a common theme and plans to use a Web site to provide that information to anyone who wants to view it, rather than providing a single response to every FOIA request.

Maybe this is the start of something big in government.

In an in an attempt to better connect to the younger demographic of returning soldiers, the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs is embracing the world of Web 2.0 with its Returning Servicemembers page. They have launched the department’s first public blog, a Youtube channel, a Facebook page, and a Secondlife island. And the VA has also set up a mobile site at m.va.gov where returning soldiers will find news, videos, facility locations, contact info and more.

We hope this is a trend that spreads rapidly throughout government.

Hat Tip: Socialfeds.