Big time. USCIS has managed to take one of the best government web sites in the world and turn it in to one of the worst. Half of the features from the old site are gone. The new site is difficult to navigate. The graphics look amateurish compared to the old site. Where are the FAQs? Where are half the legal resources? Where is the “What’s New” page? The new web site has some nice features (such as a search field to track a case right on the front page). But it is pretty sparse.
The anger at the removal of the old site was so strong that USCIS agreed to put back the old web site for a few days.
I spoke to an inside source at USCIS who tells me that the web site was put up with not only no input from the public, but with very little communication at USCIS either. This is the public’s major source of information on immigration law and procedures. The public should have been closely consulted in the process of updating. Were focus groups consulted? How about the immigration lawyers who visit the web site every day? Why was no beta site put up to get feedback before taking down the old site?
USCIS should be embarrassed by not only the site it put up, but also by the process it went through prior to putting up the web site. I remember poking fun at the old INS a number of years ago for having a web site that included nothing but a biography of former INS Commissioner Doris Meisner. I used to praise the agency for how far they had come. Unfortunately, they’ve just taken a major step backwards.