Today Mayor David Miller announced on Twitter:

“Announced Toronto Helps toronto.ca/torontohelps -programmes to help seniors, job seekers, youth, tenants: please RT” – @mayormiller

In these times not only is it especially important for government to have programs in place to help people, but like with anything else online, nobody will ever use it unless the information is easy to find, easy to navigate, and designed in a way to let users accomplish their goals.

Besides Toronto.ca still looking like a website from 1996, Toronto Helps uses a horrible double select box navigation.  The easiest way to see all the programs offered is to go to the Business Progams, or Residential Programs page, even though going to those pages is pretty overwhelming, each listing over 40 programs, all without any description as to what they really provide.

It’s always nice to have the city make even incremental efforts to putting more resources and information on programs online and to make them accessible in general, but this portal could maybe could have done a better job by helping people identify what problems they have, and then guiding them to the correct program that could help them.

Another option for organizing these programs could have been to identify who the reader was, maybe a small business owner, and then not only list the various programs available, but also pointing out what they actually do and how the programs could help them: “These programs provide cash rebates”, “These  programs help you with your taxes” etc…

Some people were also impressed with the mayors’ knowledge of asking people to “RT” or Re-Tweet his message.

What are your thoughts on Toronto Helps?

Image via Wikipedia