The vast majority of U.S. government websites don’t even meet federal standards when it comes to usability, according to a new report from the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF).
The nonprofit think tank analyzed 297 of the government’s most-visited websites and found that 92% of them were “not fast, mobile friendly, secure, or accessible.” In fact, many of the sites didn’t meet standards for usability, as well as generally accepted web-industry standards, ITIF said in a press release.
“Despite years of progress in digital government, a striking number of federal websites do not even meet many of the U.S. government’s own requirements, let alone private-sector best practices,” Alan McQuinn, ITIF research analyst and an author of the report, in a statement. He added that the new administration must improve its websites, since “many constituents rely on federal websites to interact with government.”
The five websites that performed best in the study were healthdata.gov, healthfinder.gov, consumerfinance.gov, whitehouse.gov under the Trump administration, and usembassy.gov. The report noted that whitehouse.gov under the Obama administration was listed 55th.
ITIF rated Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change-Working Group II’s website, ipcc-wg2.gov, as the least functional page. It would not load when TIME attempted to visit it Thursday morning.
Only 36% of the sites ITIF tested passed a test about mobile-loading speeds and nearly half didn’t pass a test about accessibility for those with disabilities.
“Federal websites still have a long way to go to comply with the requirements that past administrations have set for them,” McQuinn said.
