The benefits of a WWW initiative typically fall into three performance categories: services that are better, cheaper, or faster. WWW technologies can enable all three types of improvements, depending on the specific goals and objectives of the proposed service. The following list of sample performance improvements has been drawn from a number of sources, including the experience of the seven NYS agencies that participated in CTG's Internet Services Testbed.

• Time savings
• Cost savings

• Response time
• Information distribution time

• Consolidation of services
• Convenience
• Improved accuracy
• Enhanced information (service) quality
• Innovation
• More frequent communication
• Wider communication
• Larger number of inquiries
• Increased use of services
• Revenue generation
• More accountability
• Human resource development
• Greater participation in administrative processes
• Additional visibility

We encourage you to think, as much as possible, in terms of outcomes and results rather than outputs. For example, think in terms of how the agency staff member, business partner, or constituent will have their lives changed, rather than how many hits your WWW pages will receive. While this will often be difficult to quantify, especially in the complex world in which your service will reside, a focus on the end results can help to clarify your objectives and sharpen your efforts.

Some measures will be relatively easy to describe in quantitative terms, especially those in the cheaper and faster categories. Others will need to be described in more qualitative terms that, nonetheless, can be translated into empirical measures that can be quantified. For example, "increased client satisfaction" can be operationalized by "an increase of at least 25 percentage points in the number of clients who answer 'Satisfied' or 'Highly satisfied' on the customer feedback questionnaire." While collecting this information can often require time-consuming methods such as interviewing and surveying, it can contribute significantly to your ability to assess real impact.

It is important to make your expectations explicit so you can assess whether your expectations were met. Concrete statements of how you will serve citizens can help build realism into your plans. As much as anything else, grappling with the issue of what impact your project will have will help build ownership in the project in the agency, and subject your ideas to additional scrutiny and discussion that will help fine-tune your efforts and clarify your expectations.