Just as the Pledge of Allegiance stirs up controversy, so does the United States’ e-government effort to serve up a viable web portal for its citizens.

After a search [for what I expect should be a Yahoo!-like portal] on the [dot] GOV network, I found USA.GOV. The URL itself holds significant marketability and it makes for top billet and easy recognition in a web search. But, after entering the USA.GOV site, I was sent off into an one-way labyrinth of chaos and calamity.

Navigation through the site kept me moving and busy — but not in a clear direction. What’s wrong? I believe the initial breakdown is not conveying the organization of government’s main and tertiary departments — not displaying them on the landing page as an intuitive user-friendly layout.

First off and very basic: Visitors to USA.GOV are presented with a multilevel horizontal navigation bar that does little in the way of reflecting actual US departmental hierarchy. Then — after the landing page — the site does no more than put visitors on what looks like an alphabetical ’site map.’ If not a site map-like page, visitors will find themselves on a URL totally *outside* the USA.GOV portal with yet another design, look and feel.

A lot of great information links off USA.GOV. Just not in a manner that feels consistent with ‘one’ portal. The site and ALL its sub links are prime for consolidation and unification — an agenda item I believe President-elect Barack Obama spells out in his Innovation and Technology fact sheet — “Create a transparent and connected democracy.”