[Cross-posted to the PMF Info blog here. Yes, yesterday.]
After months of waiting, the new PMF website (pmf.gov) site has been released. Thematically, it’s an improvement over the old site, but I haven’t yet had a chance to dig into it to see if the information is better organized.
What do you all think of it? Can you find things you’re looking for easier?
Since I actually posted the update yesterday, I do have some initial thoughts, and they aren’t exactly rosy. Some of the issues I’ve found can be mitigated (probably by me by providing tools externally), but some of them are real head scratchers. I will publish a full writeup as soon as I gather my notes. In the mean time, I am interested in whatever anyone else has to say about the site.
Here’s my thoughts.
What’s good
-I like the new video
-Has a lot of in-depth information
-Definitely a step forward from the last website
Could be improved:
-No way to sign-up to receive regular updates – email, FB, Twitter. It is important for PMF to build a recurring relation with candidates and communicate regularly.
-Nothing interactive – FAQs, live chat, discussion board. Still feels like applying to a black hole
-Doesn’t link to PMF listserv which is where everyone communicates
-Doesn’t provide a human voice to the story. What is the process really like. Tell the story of current PMFs – not just a one-off video but a ton of real stories. Not perfect but most consulting firms do – http://careers3.accenture.com/Careers/Global/Working-Here/ERP.htm
-The design and UI is solid but not beautiful and eye-catching like teach.gov, good.is, or a http://www.teachforamerica.org/
Couple more
-I like the footer and push to content there
-Not sure why the Facebook page is buried at bottom. As mentioned earlier the website should push people to sign up for recurring information quickly – via email, FB, etc…I’d actually make it a FB like button instead of a link to the page
-Saw that there were 5 success stories…not bad and actually pretty good. I would encourage trying to get 20-25 and make them less polished and more authentic.
Much better than the old one. I agree with Steve that it lacks interactivity and needs to push content on Twitter, Facebook, and other social media. This is the first time that the video has been posted directly from YouTube. I also like the success stories of previous PMFs and the news and events calendar on the front page.
I also noticed that the site seems to be missing an active link to the PMF Projected Position System. The links I have found so far lead to the agency portal for the PPS, but not to the part that lets PMFs actually look for positions. Fortunately the page still exists, and I had an old link to it that works:
https://www.pmf.opm.gov/JobSearch/results.aspx
Note that http://www.pmf.gov/JobSearch/results.aspx results in a 404 – Not Found error.
Other observations: Some of the legacy navigation seems to have been preserved, which is unfortunate because it is so far from mere compliance with Section 508 it’s not funny. The news and rotations pages don’t have RSS output formats to allow people to subscribe to updates. And occasionally links from the front page don’t take you where you might expect to go.