For just about any other trade or niche, we can use the words ‘beautiful’ or ‘awesome’ in the title. Government agencies, however, seemed to get left behind somewhat when website design trends started happening. In a similar way to sports sites and educational sites, government agencies tended to use a purpose-built template for their sites, rendering them all the same or very similar.
Just like any other industry, governments are starting to realize the need to keep up with the times, and it is clear that America and Australia lead the way in modern, trendy government web design. Here is a list of the best government agency website designs we could find from around the world, and as the US local and national governments seem to have their fingers on the pulse, you will no doubt notice that this list mainly consists of US sites.
Government Agency Website Designs
La Cour D’Honneur
This French site is run by Le Ministere de la Culture et de la Communication, and has a fullscreen image of the Palais-Royal in Paris. Scrolling the mouse wheel will zoom the image in and out, and you can view either a daytime or night-time image.
2012 at the St. Louis County Library District
A full width background video is the main feature of this St. Louis, Missouri, library’s website. Otherwise the landing page is in the flat design style.
Louvre/Islamic Arts
This site is a branch of the Louvre Museum in Paris, and it introduces it’s Islamic Arts section. It is very nicely designed, mainly in the modern, flat style.
Louvre Museum
This is the Louvre Museum’s main page. It has a slideshow followed by a grid-style layout. The navigation menu on the right-hand side moves with the page as you scroll down. The background for the site is a photograph of one of the Louvre’s roofs.
NASA: Prospect
It’s a NASA site… no more explanation needed! There are some great scrolling effects on this site.
Alabama
This is the official website for the state of Alabama, USA. They have used almost every current web design trend on this site: a large background image, transparency, ghost buttons, flat design and a narrow font, and of course, the site is fully responsive.
Sacramento County
Sacramento is the capital city of the state of California, USA. This site seems to mix current and past trends. They have a full width slideshow highlighting the city’s attractions, and they have used flat icons but have put a shadow under them – it somehow works very effectively for a nice overall presentation.
Tennessee
The Tennessee Government have used a Pinterest, pinboard style layout to present their site.
South Carolina
This government site uses a full width background image, and parallax scrolling. You can also change the font size – small or large – to your taste.
Maine
Maine uses a pinboard-style layout on a photographic background.
Utah
The Utah Government site has a fullscreen background image with animated clouds. The design is predominantly in the flat style.
Arkansas
This site uses a full width image with some transparency and flat design.
West Hollywood
This city’s site is not particularly outstanding in it’s basic design, but it has a beautifully colorful background, endorsing the tagline The Creative City.
Republican Party of Florida
Maybe not quite a government agency, this site has a grid-style layout and is presented in the flat design style.
The White House
The home of the US government, this site is presented very much in a magazine-style layout.
Data.gov
This site supplies Federal, state and local data, tools and resources to conduct research, build apps, design data visualizations and more. Containing a lot of data, the designers have managed to present the site in a minimal style, using flat design and solid blocks of color.
USPS
The United States Postal Service uses an image of Spiderman to endorse their tagline: Speed, Agility, and Reliability.
St. Kitts & Nevis High Commission London
This site uses a beautiful photographic background image and the body of the design uses transparency.
Museum of Australian Democracy
A site using the flat design trend with a slideshow and a grid-style layout.
Austrade
This is the site of the Australian Trade Commission. It uses a grid-style layout and is presented in the flat style.
GCHQ
The Government Communication Headquarters’ website has a grid-style layout and flat design.
MI5
Probably one of the best known governmental security services in the world, it is good to see that MI5 have stepped into the 21st Century with their website design, using a grid-style layout and flat design.
Information Commissioner’s Office
The ICO is a UK authority set up to uphold information rights in the public interest. The website is pleasantly presented in the flat style, using pastel colors for their icons and a touch of transparency.
Conclusion
Hopefully government agencies around the world will soon catch on to the fact that they need to modernize their sites to improve user experience and engage their viewers.
Do you think it is important for government agencies to have a modern site design? Do you know of any such sites that we have missed from this list? Please share your links and comments with us.