My first impressions of Recovery.gov are actually pretty good. I’m not one to praise the government for anything (no, really), but I have to admit that federal laws governing accessibility standards of governmental Web sites make for a quality end product. The homepage text and navigation is clear, concise, and to the point–and how many Web sites can claim that, these days? I’d also like to say that I think Recovery.gov was a good pick for the domain name–much superior to Bailout.gov or CanadaRelocationGuide.gov.

Let’s move beyond the homepage and domain name and into the site tour: I’d recommend you check out the following seven pages/features in your quest to learn more about the recovery effort.

1. Where Is Your Money Going? (Graph): This handy little graphic shows you the view from 30,000 feet: how much bailout money is going to health care vs. education vs. tax breaks, etc. Pretty basic stuff, but also useful, and important to see visually. You can also see the same data in a tabular view.
2. “The Bill”: OK, strictly speaking, the “The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009″ isn’t hosted on Recovery.gov, but the site prominently features it and links to it. The entire bill is a 13Mb PDF file (ouch!), but if we’re all going to argue over and opine on the bill, it’d be a good idea to print it out and actually read the thing.(Or, maybe not, if the US Senators are any role models.)
3. Share Your Recovery Story: Well, you could interpret this form in one of two ways: a) it’s a cynical, cheap way to make citizens feel like Uncle Sam gives a damn about their opinions; or, b) it’s the Obama administration making good on its promise to actually listen to citizens and make decisions based on what the people want. Either way you look at it, Recovery.gov promises that “this site will allow you to peruse extensive data that will enable you to measure our progress”–so hopefully, all the submissions through this form will be available at some point in the future. (So go ahead and submit a smart-ass one about how you can’t afford the price of Arugula these days.)
4. Timeline: When I initially loaded the page, I thought “this page isn’t rendering so beautifully in my beloved Firefox 3.0 browser!”, but it turns out I wasn’t using it correctly: place your mouse cursor on the timeline, then click and drag to move the timeline forward. Pretty cool, actually.
5. Estimated Job Effect Graph: This page shows you how many jobs are created/saved by the bailout package, state by state. 269,000 jobs are being created or saved in my state (Texas). Heck, this Web site itself is probably employing 3 or 4 people. If you mouse-over on North Dakota, you’ll see that 8,000 jobs are being created or saved. My question is: How can the entire population of 237 people do all 8,000 jobs? They’d have to each work like 34.5 fulltime jobs, and there aren’t enough hours in the week to do that, unless you don’t sleep and work at 9 jobs simultaneously. Just kidding, North Dakota readers; you know I love you!
6. The Story of the Economic Recovery (Photo Gallery): OK, again, this page isn’t hosted on the recovery.gov domain, but it’s prominently featured throughout. This section links to a whitehouse.gov page, which in turn has a photo gallery widget that contains many old men wearing suits. In all seriousness, it has some decent photos if you’re interested in what “doing government stuff” looks like.
7. The FAQ: Frequently Asked Questions are frequently my favorite page on a Web site. If my little review of Recovery.gov didn’t answer all your questions, you’ll want to start here.

And that’s it for my review and tips on Recovery.gov. If I missed any cool pages or features, please let me know via a comment below!