HUD's Web Management Operating Procedures

Overview of HUD's Web Management Strategy

When HUD's website debuted in 1995, we made a discovery: citizens expect to get information and services directly from HUD. Some managers objected: "Citizens aren't our customers. We work through intermediaries. We're wholesalers - not retailers." The web changed this paradigm. It caused HUD to create a new product: citizen-centered information and services.

We began by examining our audiences: what do they want to know? What do we want to tell them? Within months, we refocused our website on "homes and communities" - not HUD. We drew content from inside and outside of HUD, adding value by organizing it in ways that make sense to citizens.

When we encountered voids in content that citizens wanted, we became entrepreneurial. In 2000, we began teaching free Web Clinics, encouraging HUD's grantees and partners to create content to which we link. We developed free software - HUD's Web Clinic Wizard - to make it easy for them to build websites.

Why Are We Successful?

We deliver our product innovatively:

• Our Homes and Communities website is organized by audience, by topic, and by location, giving visitors choices in their exploration.
• 97 web-based touch-screen kiosks - premiering in 1997 - are available in malls and other public places, offering content to audiences HUD normally wouldn't reach. And now, they offer information not just from HUD, but also from other federal agencies.
• HUD Public Computers - computer workstations available in HUD's 80 offices - address the digital divide by providing free web access.
• "Espanol.hud.gov" mirrors our English version of "Homes and Communities."

Finally, we market our product.

• We demonstrate our web products in public places such as State Fairs.
• We publicize our website address, putting it in brochures and on faxes, business cards, office signs, and voice mail.
• We train our staff to use the website, so they - in turn - can use it to help our customers.
• We listen to the audience - through email, calls, and focus groups - to improve web content.

HUD was a pioneer in using a comprehensive strategy to produce a product that citizens want.

HUD's Governance Structure

HUD's web governance structure has been a model in the federal government for years. The biggest reason? From the beginning, we tied the websites to mission accomplishment.

The top of our web management structure is HUD's Chief Operating Officer, the Deputy Secretary.

The Office of Departmental Operations and Coordination supports the Deputy Secretary and coordinates and directs day-to-day operations of HUD's web management organization.

The Departmental Web Team - a group of Management Analysts expert in analysis, problem solving, and writing for the web - manages the product.

The Chief Information Officer ensures that HUD has the technical infrastructure to support our web products, and the Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs helps us market our web products. The Chief Procurement Officer makes sure that HUD contracts for web services comply with HUD's policies and procedures.

Each HUD office contributes to the product. Top executives and managers throughout the Department are responsible for developing and maintaining content to accomplish HUD's mission and goals.

Content management and technical support are viewed as two separate functions, and staff skilled in each work together to ensure the HUD's web products are the best they can be. Web Managers throughout HUD are management consultants and audience advocates, ensuring that content is tied to HUD's mission while addressing citizens' needs. Web Coordinators are designated in Field Offices and program offices to help Web Managers develop and maintain web content, promote HUD's websites, train staff to use the websites, and carry out other web management functions. Contractors provide most of the technical support for HUD's web products.

HUD's web products help achieve its mission, and the governance structure supports that outcome.

What's Unique About HUD's Strategy?

For 30 years, HUD sent citizens to intermediaries - public housing agencies, nonprofits, community-based organizations, state and local governments, lenders, and others - to get information. Now, HUD values its obligation to citizens by treating citizen information and services as a product.

HUD's strategy enabled it to avoid problems other agencies face:

• Content - not the website - is our product. We put product development in the hands of content experts, tied it to our top management official, and committed the resources to be successful. Other agencies continue to struggle with organizational placement and staffing.
• We approached product development from a citizen's viewpoint. We created content around topics, audience, and geography - not around HUD's organization.
• We know that citizens don't understand government organization. We mandated one HUD website with a common look and feel, avoiding a proliferation of unconnected websites from each sub-organization
• We recognized that some citizens don't think of HUD as a resource; so we put easy-to-use kiosks in places where they live, shop, and work - in effect, taking HUD to the people.
• We give our partners grants and loans to deliver services to citizens. We reach out to teach them how to provide those services online; and we link their content into our websites.
• We know that citizens need help finding what they want. We market our products, leading citizens to the information and services we provide.
• The key is putting it together, in a unified product plan.

How Do We Know It Works?

HUD's citizen-focused web-delivered content helps citizens solve their problems and accomplish their objectives.

Audience Feedback

"Just wanted to thank you for this wonderful website...without (it), we probably would never have known about the property that we were successfully able to purchase." - jeribo@AOL.com

"This is the ONLY site...that gives information without a sales pitch...this is very effective, educating the buyer before he/she/they get too deep and can't get out." -Sheila J Schweers, Florence, SC

"Your HUD Public Computer in the Orlando office is fantastic! It has current and relevant information to the Orlando area and then leads you onto other local, state, and national sites/info." - Anonymous

"We started our website because of the clarity of the HUD (web clinic) in Albuquerque. Suddenly, a website seemed do-able." - Aspen Behavior Health

Expert Evaluations

• Assessment of HUD's Kiosk Program, Diversified Business Consulting Group, February 2003: 78% of kiosk users are low income; 87% don't have Internet access; and 74% take action after using the kiosks.
• The Public Strategies Group: "(HUD's website is) a pioneer among federal agencies in how to put useful information in the hands of customers and stakeholders," Fall, 2000, Review of HUD

Awards/Recognition

• Digital Government Award, MIT/Accenture, 2000.
• Best Feds on the Web: Government Executive Magazine, 1997, 1998
• E-Gov Trailblazer Award: HUD’s Web Clinics, 2001
• Excellence in Government Award: HUD’s kiosks, 2001
• Solutions Award: Center for Excellence in Information Technology: HUD’s kiosks, 2000
• E-Gov Pioneer Award: HUD’s kiosks, 1999

Who Benefits?

People all over the world who need information about homes and communities in the United States benefit from HUD's web products. They get what they want, when they want it, in ways that make sense to them.

• From our website, they can learn how to buy a home, watch webcasts about fair housing, get answers to homebuying questions, subscribe to mailing lists to receive current information, and participate in discussions on topics of interest.
  
  
• From our kiosks, they can search for subsidized apartments in their area, find listings of HUD homes for sale, and locate services for the homeless.
  
  
• From our Public Computers, they can file fair housing complaints, find out if they're owed an FHA refund, and print out handbooks and forms.
  
  
• People who read Spanish can use the Spanish version of the kiosks or espanol.hud.gov to get the information they need.
  
  
• HUD partners benefit from our Web Clinics by learning to create their own public service websites; and citizens benefit by getting access to more information and services about homes and communities, online.

By delivering a citizen-centered product, citizens are more satisfied with their government experience.