Workforce Website Evaluation Report & Rubric

Introducing the Workforce Website Evaluation Rubric

March 2022

Worker-centered research, rubric, and recommendations for Workforce Websites.

We researched what workers want, collaborated with stakeholders throughout workforce & education industries, and created a rubric to evaluate 45 workforce websites throughout the country. Supported by Texas 2036, this report seeks to answer 3 big questions.

  1. What do workers want from workforce websites?

  2. How might we evaluate the quality of workforce websites in a standardized, evidence-based way?

  3. Where should workforce websites go from here?

What’s inside?

Here are some of our favorite tidbits from the report.

We evaluated potential features with ~300 career seekers & gov't, postsecondary, & workforce reps.

  • The most desired features are: (1) being able to compare career training data like cost, duration, potential earnings, and fit, (2) discovering one's eligibility for funding that will cover the costs of training, and (3) knowing how a career training program aligns with one's interests.

  • The least desired features (for a regional workforce site) include: job postings, job fairs, and talking to someone.

35 out of 46 (76%) websites fail to satisfy workers' most desired features.

  • 33 (72%) fail to provide a high quality user experience on mobile.

  • The 75th percentile of workforce websites performed at 60% on the rubric.

  • Recommendation #1: Utilize the rubric to generate a better, more modern standardized template that will drive down costs.

  • Recommendation #2: Utilize the rubric to self-evaluate and strategize software development with UI/UX experts.