Whitehouse College Scoreboard Scores Zero.

Today, I took Obama's advice and visited the new college Scoreboard website. You remember, the one he mentioned in his SOTU address. 

It is at http://www.whitehouse.gov/issues/education/higher-education/college-score-card

I found the Scoreboard unworkable, non intuitive, absurd, silly in fact, and it simply made no sense. I tried to locate a school that offered civil engineering courses, but was unsuccessful. I tried to locate a school using the zip code search criteria and was unsuccessful. The site claims that the Scorecard system developed by the U.S. Department of Education will make it easier to search for a college and get the college graduation stats and a few other useful stats, the kind every college has on their web page in plain view. 

The Fed college Scoreboard has succeeded in taking some easy to get information and making it obscure and hard to retrieve in typical Obama, the transparent POTUS, fashion.

In contrast to the Scoreboard, I found a simple Google search for college information to be much easier. I doubt if anyone at the white house even went to the Scoreboard site and tried to navigate it before Obama announced it in his SOTU address. I suspect the "talking points" never mentioned testing the site. The White House may have thought that few Obama supporters were college bound anyway so why make the site genuinely useful. The announcement trumped the real potential value of a website like this, or the Whitehouse may just believe that talking about it is all the government needs to do. Next the Fed will offer training courses in how to use the site as part of their pre-school initiative. It will create jobs.

If you doubt my analysis, go to the site and try to use it. It is the poster child for enigmatic user interface design. Google search is safe from losing traffic to the Obama College Scoreboard website. 

Why am I not surprised?