#FOISummit brief: Keynote speaker Waldo Jaquith discussed The State Decoded

Waldo Jaquith delivered the keynote address from the Renaissance Arts Hotel in New Orleans. Jaquith is the award-winning “open government technologist” who developed the White House’s Ethics.gov tool and an ongoing project to put all 50 states’ laws, court decisions and legislative tracking information on a user-friendly Web platform.

Please find Waldo Jaquith's biography here.

In his keynote speech, Jaquith elaborated his "The State Decoded" projects for Florida, Virginia and Maryland.

"State law websites are terrible," Jaquith said. It is not that difficult to make websites more user friendly and attractive, he said.

Jaquith gave suggestions to state laws website builders:

  • We were all beginners once. Make it easy.
  • Codes are just words. Make them beautiful.
  • Represent the inerconnectedness of rules.
  • Other people are smarter. Plan on it. Let others suggest useful improvements to your site.

Please visit our 2013 FOI Summit homepage for more information and coverage. For tweets about the 2013 FOI Summit go to #FOISummit, and follow us @nfoic.