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The Webby Awards are beginning to resemble the Oscars in their level of hype.
However as the most prestigious global award for digital media I can excuse them the need to make their mark alongside the older media awards.
The Government winner this year was the Peace Corps for their teen site.
It's an attractive marketing site, with a consistently strong theme and subtle interactivity.
The People's Voice Winner in the category was the Transport for London site.
While not as pretty, this is significantly more functional as a 'working' site designed to deliver services day in, day out.
The two sites are excellent examples of the pressures in the online world - stunning visual design (form) or clear consistent functionality.
Humans as a species react strongly to design - take our ongoing love affair with fashion or architecture for example.
This isn't limited to the physical world - beauty is in the eye and mind of the beholder. Our thoughts and, particularly, our feelings, colour how we respond to any digital product.
Of course design must also be useable - but isn't that one of the qualities of good design?
Government has some legislative considerations to ensure websites are usable and accessible, which often appear to bias us us towards focusing on function at the expense of form.
However as online communications we must keep in mind that form, the visual and interactive design, is equally important in winning the hearts, minds and ongoing use of citizens.
We have photogenic politicians, can we please have more attractive government websites?
Sunday, June 08, 2008
12th Webby awards announced - beauty remains in the mind of the beholder | Tweet |
Wednesday, June 04, 2008
Innovative Intranets | Tweet |
Here are some great ideas from Step Two Designs in a presentation resulting from their Innovative Intranets Awards this year.
It includes a voiceover from James Robertson
What do innovative intranets look like?
Usability Rules - OK? | Tweet |
Needless to say most of the results matched what we already knew
- our website needs more of a customer-focus and is due for a facelift,
- our intranet needs reorganisation to match how our staff need to access information and tools, and
- our customers cannot tell the difference between our website and our secure transaction service - nor should they need to.
Naturally there were some surprises - but if the people who manage the properties are already 70-80% right, why is it so important to call in the consultants?
The cynical response, and one I've floated out there from time to time, is that organisations don't trust the experience and expertise of their staff.
This is similar to the principle where for some products you sell more if you raise the price - as people believe if the price is higher so must be the quality.
Staff are a sunk cost, so there's no apparent further investment to justify the quality of an outcome.
This works well for consultants, who can build their credibility and reputation by simply charging more - though they do have to deliver in the end.
However I've never really liked it as a reason - both because I'd like to think that employers recognise the skills of their employees (or wouldn't have hired them), and because it only addresses the issue of trust, not the issue of whether the work needs to be done.
After years of thinking on this topic, involving many research projects and other consultant-led activities, I've come to the conclusion that the real reason for bringing in the external experts is simply that 'we don't know what we don't know'.
It's great to sit back in an organisation and say that a piece of research taught us nothing that we didn't already know - but is that really the case.
Even if you are 80% correct on what your customers wanted (after the fact), the other 20% may be the most vital piece of the puzzle. As we become close to our work and acculturalised to the organisation it becomes impossible to take off those rose-coloured glasses and see our online properties (or other products and services) in the same way as our customers.
Of course I have had other reasons for using independent experts over the years - to train staff, to substitute money for time we didn't have, and to ensure that politically and legally we had something signed to point at "but the consultant said that..."
But my main reason in almost every case has been that most powerful reason of all - I don't know what I don't know, and I'm unable to take off my glasses to find out.
Tuesday, June 03, 2008
New ActewAGL epayment site | Tweet |
A quick plug for an organisation I used to work for, ActewAGL, the integrated utility provider in the ACT have just released their new-look epayment website.
It's a great example of a balance between effective design, usability and the corporate profit motive.
While I personally have a few small quibbles with the design (for example the log-in area would be better placed above the green message), it's been great to see them make the commitment to encouraging more customers to transact online.
Online transactions are a clear win-win situation. They are lower cost for the organisation to manage, and add a green tinge to aid in marketing efforts. At the same time it allows customers at least the illusion of being in control of the relationship.
By the way, I was responsible for the current design of the ActewAGL, TransACT and Grapevine sites (within certain corporate limits) so by all means blame me for any difficulties in using those sites.
My successor in the role has made some further improvements but, like anyone coming into a role relatively soon after a new design has been put in place, these have had to fit in with the existing interface.
Sunday, June 01, 2008
eGovernment in Australia is like a chocolate éclair | Tweet |
There is some exciting activity happening in the Australian eGovernment scene.
States such as Victoria, Queensland and WA have taken major steps to standardise their online approaches across departments. At local level South Australia has introduced a phenomenal content management system that allows every council to have a well structured website, providing access to the key services they offer while still supporting individuality and innovation.
However at a Federal level it appears to me that eGovernment activity is more patchy.
Certainly there are fantastic applications such as e-tax from the Australian Tax Office (ATO), and the 2007 eCensus from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS).
But across the Federal Government there is little consistency as to how websites and eGovernment applications are designed, built or managed. Standards for reporting to allow ready comparisons across government sites do not exist and there are few efficiencies in coding or content management across departments or even within agencies across websites and intranets.
AGIMO (the Australian Government Information Management Office) did some sterling work a few years ago to develop a set of Better Practice Checklists and Guides for Federal government sites, however these are not enforceable, aging and do little to 'rein in' Agencies who go their own way.
Personally I've spoken with AGIMO several times to get their position on email marketing, wikis, blogs and participation in stakeholder forums and social media - unfortunately there are no guidelines and little knowledge of what is actually occurring in these spaces across the Government sector.
On this basis, while eGovernment does have a firm outer later, full of chocolatey goodness, the core is simply mush.
There are a number of steps I have identified that would allow Australia's Federal Government to begin realising the efficiencies and benefits that could be delivered via the online channel.
These include:
- Auditing the online channel within all Government departments to gain an understanding of the websites/intranets/extranets they run, support or engage with, the (software) systems they use, the governance in place and their strategic plans for the channel.
- Establishing and maintaining a register of key people working in the online area (business and IT people) across Departments who can cross-fertilise and support agency initiatives.
- Establishing appropriate and standardised reporting metrics that can be audited by the ANAO and guarantee that senior management and ministerial staff are provided with the same type of information no matter which agency. This may also include standardising on a core set of web measurement technologies.
- Establish strong guidelines on appropriate governance across website, intranet and extranet management.
- Create guidelines for engagement via the online channel - approaches for using social media and two-way communications tools in an effective, responsible and governable manner.
- Create National and State panels of suppliers across key areas, such as content management, search technologies, web design, mobile web design, rich media development, email marketing, mobile marketing and similar online areas that any Agency can draw on.
- Establish national standards around interface design - as simple as whether to place 'OK' or 'Cancel' to the left, using the same term for 'Firstname' and as complex as is needed. Due to how Agencies are so tied to their existing 'standards' no matter how different it is from other Agencies', there needs to be muscle to enforce this, perhaps with the involvement of the Australian National Audit Office (ANAO).
- Negotiate Government-wide head-level agreements with key providers so that smaller Agencies can access the tools and services they need to develop their online channel at an appropriate cost and support level.
- Build a government-wide library of common tools, code and 'widgets' which Agencies can draw on and reuse within their own systems. If the ongoing management and development of these common tools is an issue I'm sure appropriate arrangements can be developed to allow Agencies to contribute what they can afford while still benefiting - after all we're all the same eGovernment and all the money comes from the same source.
- Establish National training standards for staff in the online area - both business and technical - to ensure that citizens receive a similar standard of service online, just as is expected from telephone or face-to-face services.
The situation isn't all gloom and doom (how gloomy can a chocolate éclair be) - there are some initiatives which have begun to address some of my goals above.
Govdex is a prime example, a centrally provided wiki system (using Confluence - my second favourite wiki system behind MediaWiki) that any Agency can use to facilitate engagement. I have implemented two wikis using the system and while it appears not all agencies 'play nice' as yet (it's hideously slow in our office), I have nothing but praise for the organisation supporting the application and for AGIMO's work in providing the service.
Another initiative is the AGOSP program, also from AGIMO - which will see Agencies be able to access a central forms system for citizen forms, as they can already do for business forms and aims to strengthen Australia.gov.au as the central point for online engagement with Government.
However from my perspective it appears that most Federal Agencies are siloed - each doing their own research, design, development, system selection, governance and ongoing management - taking few learnings from others and definitely not sharing experiences to any great extent.
Perhaps one day in the far future eGovernment in Australia will develop that extra hard gobstopper core - but for now, in my humble opinion, it remains an éclair.
