DTA launches gov.au Observatory

The Digital Transformation Agency has launched the gov.au Observatory, a new stream of quantitative research seeking to visualise the government's digital domain.

The new Observatory uses data from Google Analytics, Google Search Console and the gov.au web crawl to seek to create a holistic view of government as a single service provider.

The system creates a visual record of the data from more than 1.16 billion website interactions per month across 9.5 million government web pages. The platform also draws on insights from international partner agencies, such as the UK's Government Digital Service and 18F in the US.

Modern data science methods such as natural-language processing and network analysis are then used to explore where users encounter problems with government services, as well as how well the way agencies design services aligns with how people use them.

In order to maintain privacy, no personal information is captured or used, and no raw data is old or shared. Agencies are also able to opt out of appearing in the Observatory.

The Observatory already has 30 partner agencies from across the federal government, and the DTA is seeking expressions of interest from other government service providers.

Image courtesy DTA