Beautiful? Government Website? Is that even possible? Oxymorons aside, we had to dig deep to surf our way through some of the most mind-numbingly aesthetic and usability challenged un-noteworthy websites of all time. At some points, I kind of felt like George W. Bush designed and Cheney programmed these themselves they were so bad!… but I managed to make it through without too much alcohol to bring it to you all with some honorable mentions to boot.
Air Force
This website is first class. It’s a recruiting center meant and it does it’s job perfectly for the demographic it’s aimed at.
USA Service
Obama has been harping about taking our country’s problems into our own hands. This was launched recently to support that initiative.
Smithsonian
The Smithsonian Institute is a Government administered and funded organization that includes research centers, museums and magazines.
White House
The now famous re-designed website home of the President.
United States Postal Service
From personal experience I can tell you all the major delivery companies have streamlined websites that cater to user experience. I… *holds breath* …prefer it over both the FEDEX and UPS websites on a aesthetic basis.
Change.gov
Obama’s website during the transition.
Army
Army recruitment website is pretty clean and cool. Doesn’t give off any hint of being Stop Gapped for 3 years.
Recovery.gov
Obama’s website to disseminate information on the road to recovering from the economic crisis.
Whitehouse YouTube Page
This is important because the Government is reaching out to people where they are.
Barack Obama
This website arguably won the election for Barack Obama.
Honorable Mentions:
These websites were more impressive than what one would think of as the classically horrible government website but showed some promise. They had something about them the led me to believe that some Government monkey that knew nothing of user experience didn’t ruin them completely. I also included some I liked but wasn’t exactly sure how/where I could get them in to show you mofos:
Central Intelligence Agency – C.I.A.
This is a little circa 2002 but that’s a compliment considering some of it’s brethren.
Department of Homeland Security
I included this one because you can see it’s trying really really hard.
Go Army
This is the ROTC Army website.
Change.gov YouTube Page
Once again, nice treatment for the YouTube page. Had to include because that’s Mary J herself Obama’s getting some sugar from!
Air Force – Learn More
This is a interior page of the Air Force website. I just wanted to end on a BEE-YOO-TEE -FULL note. That’s all folks!
Did I Miss Anything?
Let me know in the comments below so I can add it into the article! Thanks!
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http://www.gop.gov/
surprised you missed it.
Shockingly beautiful? That’s taking it a bit too far. Most of these are serviceable, and probably not too bad on the usability front, but they are good examples of design by committee.
@Dan I guess what I was thinking was “Shockingly Beautiful FOR a Government Website”. Anyway, I hope you had fun seeing them grouped together at least!
@andres thanks!
http://www.gop.gov —- beautiful yes, but should a political party have a .GOV website. Seems like a potential violation of the Hatch Act.
Gop.gov is pretty washed out. They need more color.
@Jeff – You’re getting into the spirit of what this website is all about!
[...] 10 Shockingly Beautiful US Government Websites! [...]
http://www.gop.gov is rubbish. full of tables, lacks color, content is rubbish. URL is deceptive. I’m from Australia (20 years behind the States) and I hate it.