Society

Easy-to-use govt polls needed

By Wu Yiyao (China Daily)
Updated: 2010-01-04 07:33

Netizens say evaluations online should be more user-friendly

SHANGHAI: Just in time for New Year's resolutions, local governments are inviting netizens to rate their performances in the past year. While online questionnaires for government evaluation have become a hot issue, the questionnaires are not receiving a warm welcome due to the poor design of the sites and the lack of feedback to those posting complaints or questions.

The government of Shanghai's Minhang district launched an evaluation on its official website. The questionnaire invites netizens to rate governmental departments in their information disclosure performance.

"I'd like to have a look at the survey, but I don't know where to find it. I clicked here and there for five minutes and ended up finding no clues, so I just gave up," said Chen Chen, 35.

"The government's decision to invite netizens to evaluate its performance shows that officials are aware of the importance of listening to the people's voices," said Hu Shoujun, an expert on social development with Fudan University.

"However, if the questionnaires are not well-designed, they are not likely to attract respondents," Hu said.

The Minhang district government's questionnaire consists of 52 multiple choices. The web page of the official website does not give any hint about where to find the questionnaire or how to fill it in.

Abel Wang, 25, a resident of Changning district, said he is more interested in online commercial surveys rather than government evaluation forms.

"When I do the questionnaires concerning brands and products, I'll immediately see the latest result of the survey when I hit the 'submit' button. But when I do the online government evaluation, it seems that I will never get a feedback or response. It's simply a waste of time," Wang said.

"If the government does not give any feedback or does not release a final report of the survey, the respondents will think they participated in vain," said the social scientist Hu.

An assistant researcher with a local consultancy firm who asked to be anonymous said that some questions on the government evaluation forms are "problematic."

"Sometimes when you choose something other than 'completely satisfied,' you will be given further questions and asked to explain why you are not happy with their performance. I'd rather make a complaint call than fill in the blank," she said.

Hu also said that every evaluation in the online survey requires a report including useful data about sampling.

"If the report only lists something like '97 percent of respondents are satisfied' without telling how many people are surveyed and how they are sampled, the report will not be convincing and the validity will be questioned," Hu said.