GSA awards contract to upgrade Web site

Responding to the Bush administration's call to offer more citizen-focused services, the General Services Administration (GSA) has awarded a contract to overhaul its Web site.

The agency said Monday that it has awarded the $930,000 contract to Bates Worldwide and its partner 141XM. The initiative follows a marketing study that GSA conducted last February outlining the need to make the site more user friendly.

In particular, customers said the site contains too much information that is not always intuitively organized. Work already has begun on the site to meet the spring 2003 deadline.

GSA's Office of Citizens Services and Communications will be conducting customer surveys and working with internal stakeholders "to determine the type of information clients want to see on the Web sites," said Tom Skirbunt, acting director of strategic planning and marketing.

GSA may look to sites like FirstGov.gov as models for aspects of the GSA redesign.