Public satisfaction with government online transparency as measured by a quarterly American Customer Satisfaction Index survey made little progress in 2010, says a new analysis by ForeSee Results of Ann Arbor, Mich.

The company checks every quarter perceptions of federal website users using the ACSI methodology to measure a host of factors. It started the e-Government transparency index in 2009. The index doesn't count the number of documents an agency posts online or make assessments of what information is available. Rather, it asks users to evaluate websites according to criteria such as how easy it is to find information, how thorough it is, and how quickly it is available.

The transparency index now measures satisfaction with 31 federal websites and about 320,000 users participated in ForeSee surveys during 2010. The transparency satisfaction score dipped by more than a percentage point in the second quarter of 2010 compared to the first, and by the end of the year was merely back where it started in the first quarter, at a score of 76.2.

Citizen perception matters, says ForeSee Chief Executive Officer Larry Freed, since the more likely users are to be satisfied with a federal website, the more likely they are to have trust in the government.

For more:
- download the ForeSee Results 2010 year in review analysis (.pdf)
- go to a press release about the year in review

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