Responses to our online consultation question 1 (Page 35)

This is what we have heard in response to our online consultation question 1: "What could be done to make it easier for you to find and use government data provided online?"

More cat photos. Seriously. Better use of imagery and humour to help people find what they're looking for without the boring nature of government websites.

- anonymous

You could actually put data in formats people understand.

• Instead of using some unknown format for statistics, you could drop a SQL file.

• Instead of using only using SHP files for GIS data, you could drop a SQL file.

Also, you could share more data without charging a crazy amount of money.

- Sheldon

• have one "portal" pointing at different departments and their data

• provide data in open, machine-readable formats (open in the sense that I don't need to use proprietary software to read it and can write my own software to interpret it; CSV files are open, Excel files are not; text files are open, pdfs are not)

- Jason McLaren

A social media site where each MP must state their vote on each bill, and allow for open discussion with his/her constituents. The key to the success of this site is interaction with those who elected the MP. MPs must, of course, be mandated into spending x amount of hours or replying to x amount of comments/criticisms per date interval to ensure success.

- UVicStudent

• Better support for mobile devices (Such as Android or Blackberry phones). Perhaps a mobile version of government sites

• Wider use of open-source formats for data files.

- I H