That's my interpretation of the results from the American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI) by the University of Michigan, which says in affect people like doing business online rather than in line at office.
Federal E-Government Satisfaction Nudges UpwardThe Index found that search is consistently one of the highest impact satisfaction drivers (or "elements") in a user's overall impression of the e-government experience. For over 90 percent of sites measured by the ACSI, search is a high-impact element. Search also tends to earn poor ratings.
Speaking from experience, a government site without search is as usefule as a government answering machine. Although it will be interesting to see what kinds of "search capabilities" get implemented.
Search Mandatory On All U.S. Government Web Sites by End of '05According to a just released memo (PDF) from the U.S. government's Office of Management and Budget, all publicly accessible federal government web sites and main entry points must have search capabilities by the end of 2005.
"In some circumstances, mostly for small Web sites, agency officials may still rely on site maps or subject indexes, the memo states...some Internet experts also warn that building a better search engine is no panacea. "Search is, in many ways, second choice for most users," said Larry Freed, chief executive officer of ForeSee Results, which sponsored portions of the ACSI poll. "Most users would rather navigate the system."