FAQs are an entirely different beast, and your approach may be appropriate.

Why does an order have to be logical? Surely the criteria should be intuitive or easy to find or predictable? Unless we are designing for Mr Spock.

Alphabetical would rarely make sense to me unless the real world analogue is known that way too.

In the help system IA we are developing here my design assumption is 'order by frequency of asking' i.e. not the specific individual's goal but the cumulative users based on analysis of past support requests. The most common help topic is the first item on the drop down, and so on. Aiming for the greatest good in searching down the list.

Mark

Sorry, folks; it won't happen again.

I think of user feedback as being after the fact, and (when it is not a no-brainer) the arrangement (order, subgroupings, etc.) should be based on up-front user research (which can include feedback regarding proposed ideas). Doing the research to identify and define how the users think of the information is an important component of information architecture.

I also think that displaying a list of offices, whatever the order, tends to require that users have some knowledge of the organization's structure (and worse yet, to care about it). In my experience, people visiting a web site (government or otherwise) are generally more interested in services or information than they are in which part of the organization provides it.

I do agree with your last sentence, where it's relevant. Sequence is an organizing principle for listing the steps in a process.

When you order services, departments, offices, etc by order of importance then web/communication offices will get a flood of questions and complaints as to why "they're office is more important than mine" and "putting them that way makes us look less important."

So, alphabetical order has become the go to order listing for the web in order to avoid complaints from WITHIN the organization. People immediately recognize a list is in alphabetical order and typically don't complain…they're used to falling where they do within the alphabet. But as soon as you order them, logically, complaints ensue and many don't want to get involved in that.

Unfortunately this does a disservice to the visitors. The order of lists (like offices, for ex) should be done based on their importance to the visitor according to user feedback, stats, etc. Another option would be in the order in which a typical visitor would need to visit in order to complete their selected task (ex: Make an appointment; complete your insurance/registration form; etc)