The Italian case: best practices and missing steps to untap the potential of Mobile Government

In this last article in our series on Mobile Government, Andrea Volpini of Interact SpA shares with us some interesting examples taken from the Italian Public Administration, showing us how mobile Web can be used to provide better services to the citizens, and providing some useful suggestions for other Public Administrations as they approach these technologies.

The analysis of Inn-Gov is based on the Italian Public Administration mobile portals existing in June 2009.

The analysis takes into consideration a selected number of portals belonging to different Public Administration typologies (Government bodies, Constitutional organs, Public Security organs, Regions, Provinces, Municipalities, Research Institutes, Public Utility services). Bodies with portals having a territorial or institutional relevance were chosen representing each type.

The portals have been analyzed through an inspection based on the following parameters:

• Discoverability, defined as the quality of a site being locatable and assessed both in terms of guessability of the domain name and findability for search engines. “SEO for Firefox” was used as a ranking testing tool;
• Accessibility, defined according to the W3C consortium guidelines (Mobile Web Best Practices Basic Guidelines) for compliancy with Mobile standards. Validation with mobiReady by dotMobi has also been used.

Discoverability Best Practices

Discoverability includes guessability, a terms that indicates the ability of finding a domain on a mobile site by intuition starting from the name of the organization.
.Mobi is the primary and sole Top Level Domain targeting delivery of Internet content through mobile devices, offering an optimal searchability via handsets. This domain is the best choice for search engines ensuring best-of-brand readability and a user-friendly access.

The visibility of a mobile site is also empowered by a well-organized communication
campaign comprising a few basic points, such as:

• Display of mobile URL on the Website.
  The web portal of the organization has to show the link to the mobile site on the Home Page in the section dedicated to the services or to specific pages dedicated to multichannel access;
• Promotion on offline communications channels (press, radio, TV) Visibility on traditional media is recommended to capture mass user attention. Even though there are still technological limitations, certain mobile users have started to prefer their handsets to
  access information online, consequently mobile URL’s have to be easy to access;
• Social media Today this is a major communication channel to attract public attention and receive a useful feedback from citizens.

Atac mobile (http://atac.mobi) is a site that had successfully implemented all the above points. It is the Rome transport department (ATAC) mobile site. The atac.mobi URL is shown on the Home Page of the Web site and has been promoted through social networks such as Facebook and Twitter as well as through extensive offline campaign all over the city thus reaching an average of 80,000 visits a month.

Accessibility Best Practices

The accessibility of a site means that any type of user is able to use it via any type of device, thus independent of their skills or any eventual handicaps.
Mobiles should deliver contents regardless of handset and network limitations with easy-to-use navigation interfaces.
Accessibility has been measured via the W3C consortium OK Checker, which measures portal accessibility by performing over 20 tasks based on the W3C Mobile Best Practices.
Factors that also impact on portal accessibility and usability have been taken into
consideration including:

• Home page design: the design of the graphics of the Home page should facilitate users in finding the contents they require easily, quickly and intuitively using small
  graphics and icons, a generic search engine and a limited number of elements to optimize page upload
• Optimal page dimensions and rendering speed: dimensions should not exceed 10 Kb with a maximum rendering speed of about 4.5 seconds for GPRS devices.
• Quality of rendering: mobile portals use rendering technologies that, according to the characteristics of the handset, ensure optimal content use. Such technologies are based on a DB containing the characteristics of the handsets so that portals can be adapted
  accordingly. It is clear that a richer and more updated handset DB ensures better quality of the experience.
• Presence of a search engine: the presence of the search engine on the home page is considered a sign of good accessibility and it is time-saving. It is also important that the search engine is context-aware
• Use of access keys: to browse portals via the handset keyboard. The W3C recommends assigning access keys to the links of the top navigation menu and to frequently accessed functionalities.
• Click-to-call:In the Contact section and whenever telephone numbers appear on
  the site it is important to activate the click-to-call function that enables the selected number to be called directly.
• Architecture of navigation and content structure: information architecture is the key to usability: the organization of the contents shall represent at best the knowledge-type of domain presented by the site

	Treviso Chamber of Commerce (http://trevisosystem.mobi) The portal of the Camera di Commercio (Chamber of Commerce) of Treviso is an excellent example of how a search engine should be used. The engine is displayed on the Home Page. You only need to click once to visualize the contents you wish to see.
	Istat Mobile (http://mobile.istat.it/) The portals of the ISTAT (Statistical Site) and the Camera di Commercio (Chamber of Commerce) at Treviso are the only ones having been awarded the highest ranking with Mobile OK, having successfully passed all the 25 tests performed on the Moby OK Checker, proving that suitable languages, font dimensions and images and their level architecture are adequate.
	Atac mobile (http://atac.mobi). The ATAC site is a good overall example of usability in spite of the large amount of information and services offered. It is able to lead users towards their destination easily, quickly and efficiently via an optimal navigation. The menu is well-designed showing lists with icons for each section. Many user-friendly buttons are available to facilitate Web surfing. The ‘Update’ button provides ongoing content renewal. Dedicated search engines are available to track means of transport, limited traffic areas and so on. Only a few clicks are needed to reach your target. The graphics are adequate compared to the contents as there are only a small number of elements, which do not penalize loading, making navigation very simple.

What type of information and/or services are available today in Italy‌

It is clear that contents and services offered by portals vary according to the functions and range of activities of each administration. We can however give a general overview of the information provided:

• Institutional Contents: Citizen engagement strongly relies on the information published and its accessibility. The following items provide a more detailed description:
• Contacts info: The means for contacting bodies and the people in charge. These
  cover information about addresses, telephone numbers and e-mail;
• URP (Public Relations Office): It is the main connecting hub that citizens have for direct interaction with the administration. This section should further provide room
  for leaving messages, requests for information and comments;
• Services available: The services available should be described clearly so that visitors don’t waste time while searching;
• Institutional News and Press Releases: These enable citizens to keep up with
  activities of the body. They usually appear on the home page;
• Agenda: a space dedicated to major institutional events;
• Availability of consulting and downloading documents: Documents such as regulations, laws, projects in progress and so on, have to be visible on mobile devices with downloading availability (for handsets that do support downloading);
• Information about other Public Bodies: Information about related administrations can be very important to let users quickly discover other public bodies and
  their mobile service offering.
• Economic information: Information about the balance sheets and how its financial resources are allocated. It is a good rule for transparency to publish this type of information to citizens (call for bids and announcements for competitions are also important).
• Public Utility Services: These are tailor-made services delivered for public utility. Users navigating the portal may be interested in useful time-tables, means of transport and commuting or local events. Portals of major Institutions such as Chambers or Ministries give more generic information on topics such as regulations, law-making, national events, competitions or calls for tenders.

What are the common problems discovered on m-gov mobile sites‌

• Poor guessability. At present, only 20% of the sample has worked with the .Mobi domain.
• Validation. Only 2 of the analyzed sites were fully compliant with the W3C OK Checker. Most frequent errors included:
  • Mark-up not permitted – indicates a XML tag error;
  • Character encoding not specified – it may be caused by problems related to foreign handsets;
  • No caching info – no info is given on data caching times.
• Use of Access keys. Only 20% of the sample utilized this function.
• Click to call. 10% of the cases adopted this functionality.

What is missing to untap the potentials of Mobile Government‌

• Contents
  • Architecture of the information suited to the nature of the site, users and services delivered
  • Public Utility info
• Usability. The service has to be designed for users on the move.
• Profiling. To target at best users’ needs and to bringing relevant information “on top”
• Accessibility
  • Menu on the Home Page
  • Page dimensions limited to 10K
  • Search engine availability on Main page
  • Secondary search engine availability on the other pages
  • Adaptation of the interfaces
  • Access Keys use
  • Availability of navigation menus and Breadcrumbs
• Discoverability and promotion
  • Using .mobi domain name
  • Promotion on website and offline channels
  • Promotion on Social Media

  Other articles in this series:

  • 1. Mobile government: the forefront of Public Services
  • 2. What can M-Gov do for Public Administration today?

  About InnGov and Interact SpA
  Inn-Gov is a research project focusing on M-Government started in 2008 by interact SpA and the Department of Information Engineering and Applied Maths at the University of Salerno (DIIMA). The target of Inn-Gov is to supply the guidelines for creating mobile services and develop a prototype of mobile application for a Central Administration.

  Since 2002 R&D on Mobile Services is an integral part of Interact SpA’s own mission. we have developed solutions and followed R&D projects for users on the move together with major technological partners (Ericsson, Nokia and RealNetworks), institutions and Italian Universities (University of Rome La Sapienza, University of Salerno). Our R&D projects are centered on Mobile Internet and Web 3.0, with the aim of helping administrations create and implement new communication models based on technology. More information on http://www.interact.it