What I Learned Rebuilding a Public-Facing Government Website

Rebuilding a Government Website

Going into this, I assumed rebuilding a government website would mostly be about structure, content, and design. It’s not. The real complexity comes from everything around it.

The Hidden Layers: There are requirements that don’t exist, or don’t matter nearly as much, in the private sector. ADA compliance, language translation, and a broader, less predictable audience all change the equation. You’re not just building a site. You’re building something that has to work for everyone, and that shifts every decision.

Governance is the Real Work: Building the site is only half the job. The other half is governance. Who owns each page, who keeps it updated, and how content is prevented from going stale are critical questions. Without clear ownership and process, even a well-built site begins to decay almost immediately.

Content Isn’t What You Think: Early on, it’s easy to assume that more content is better. More pages, more detail, more coverage. In reality, analytics tells a different story. A small number of pages typically handle the majority of traffic, while most of the rest see little use.

What Actually Matters: The priority is not more content. It is faster access to the right content. Users are not exploring. They are trying to complete a task such as finding a form, looking up a property, or getting a specific answer. If that path is not clear, the rest of the site does not matter.

Where It’s Easy to Go Wrong: It is easy to overbuild content, overcomplicate navigation, and design for completeness instead of clarity. That path leads to a heavier site that is harder to use and maintain. The better approach is restraint.

What I’d Do Differently: Starting over, the focus would be on simplifying aggressively. Prioritize the highest-value pages, reduce content that is not used, and create direct paths to key actions. Build around what users actually do, not what you think they might need.

The Bottom Line: The hardest part is not building the site. It is understanding the audience well enough to avoid building too much.