Lessons to be learnt from the Grocery choice website

The last few days have seen a number of media reports criticising the new Federal government Grocery choice website.

Amidst the noise there are several key takeaways for public sector website managers.

Note that I'm not involved with the Grocery choice website or program. I'm commenting from the perspective of a public sector web manager who needs to meet the same level of scrutiny for the sites I manage.


What is Grocery choice?
The purpose of the grocery choice website, in its own words, is to provide practical grocery price information to help consumers find the cheapest overall supermarket chain in their area. It does this by publishing prices for typical grocery baskets across supermarket retailers in different areas of Australia, updated monthly.

The website was launched on 5 August this year, at the same time as the ACCC Grocery Inquiry report was released.


The main criticisms of Grocery choice
Putting aside politics, criticism has fallen into several areas;

• Accessibility - whether Grocery choice is usable by vision-impaired people, as reported in the Brisbane Times, Grocery price watch website under fire,
  
• Usefulness - whether the information is sufficiently timely to be useful for consumers, as reported in the Daily Telegragh, PM's Grocery web of deceit,
  
• Channel choice - whether the online channel can reach the appropriate audience, as in the ABC's report, GroceryChoice criticism: Seniors 'don't use' internet.

What should government website managers take away from this?

• Accessibility is crucial - failure to meet the government minimum standards can place your organisation at risk.
  
  
• Usefulness is a function of both information and presentation - web managers need to consider how to best present and explain information and services within the capabilities of the online channel to convey maximum meaning and understanding.
  
  
• Select channels based on desired outcomes - web managers need to be able to convey an understanding of the online channel's capabilities and advise other managers when it is the most important channel, a supporting channel or should not be used.

Unpacking the takeaways

Accessibility
Accessibility is a legal requirement for government agencies. Compromising website accessibility, whether due to tight deadlines or changes in design or requirements, can expose a government agency to legal action and should be considered as a risk in any web project.

On that basis accessibility is a very important area for government website managers to understand and manage. Government agencies are required to follow the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0 (WCAG 1.o) developed by the W3C in 1999 in meeting the Disability Discrimination Act 1992.

This is detailed in AGIMO's Web Publishing Guide within the Accessibility section.

The minimum standard for a government website is an 'A' rating, with 'AA' rating recommended (personally we're gradually shifting our agency websites to 'AAA' level). There are some great tools available to analyse sites to ensure they meet the standard, such as the VisionAustralia web accessibility toolbar and, as I've discussed previously, a list of tools from AIM.

Web managers should also note that the W3C's update to their guidelines, WCAG 2.0, is nearly here. There are already a useful reference on how to meet the WCAG 2.0 guidelines available from WIPA.

The criticism of Grocery choice is clearcut - if the site doesn't meet the 'A' minimum level then it does fail to meet Australian government standards and this needs to be addressed as a priority.

If it remains unaddressed then legal action is possible, similar to the accessibility court case around the Sydney Olympics website, well described and documented by Tom Worthington.


Usefulness
Does the website serve a useful purpose? Does it provide relevant, timely and usable information and/or services for citizens and customers.

This is something all web managers should be considering when building or developing websites.

In meeting the goals of a government agency web managers need to consider the needs of multiple groups of stakeholders and audiences. We also need to consider the capabilities of the channel itself - online is not the best channel for every engagement.

In Grocery choice's case the debate has centred on whether the information in the site - which is published monthly - is useful to citizens.

This is a debate with two sides, Choice magazine, as quoted in the Livenews article, Grocery Watch is a great tool: Choice, has expressed that they believe the website is of use, whereas other commentators has said that monthly basket data is not as useful as visiting the local supermarkets.

The information is collected as part of a set program, over which I would expect the website manager has little control.

However I think the site manager has done an excellent job of presenting this information in a useful way, and explaining the collection process such that website visitors can make their own determinations of the usefulness of the data.

The presentation and organisation of information is often the area over which website managers have the greatest influence in helping make a website more useful for citizens.

The value of information or services can be greatly enhanced - or greatly diminished - through presentation and all website managers need to have a firm grasp of how to best use the online channel to maximise this value, even when they have no control over the information itself.


Channel choice
The specific debate in ABC's article (mentioned earlier) is related to claims that seniors cannot benefit from the Grocery choice information as they make limited use of the online channel.

Online has always been a controversial channel as not everyone chooses or is able to use the internet. For example it has higher barriers to entry than other mass media - you need to purchase a computer and pay for an ongoing ISP account. Television, radio and print media have a lower upfront investment and shallower learning curve.

Despite this, internet has been adopted in Australia much faster than radio, television or print media. Industry reports are fairly clear that both television and print readership are declining. The advertising industry are also very clear that 18-35 year olds are very difficult to reach via other media, as has been discussed in ABC's The Gruen Transfer.

So therefore online is an important and growing channel - but is not a universal channel.

My experience has been that ]in management there are internet 'bulls' and internet 'bears'. The first group seeks to use the internet wherever possible, is more supportive of the channel and more inclined to fund online initiatives. The second group is still cautious of the internet, is more dismissive of whether it is used and how it is used and is inclined to use traditional channels.

Effective website managers need to steer a middle course, advocating use of the channel where appropriate, and advocating the use of other channels where not. They also need to ensure that other managers understand the capabilities of the online channel so that good channel choice decisions can be made.

The primary goals of organisations generally involve reaching, communicating and engaging with customers and stakeholders - providing what is needful and supporting the conversations necessary to make improvements over time in an effective and cost-efficient manner.

On this basis the channels selected are less important than the outcomes achieved.

I personally remain mindful of this, and believe other web managers should also.


Did you have other take-aways?
I'd appreciate comments from other web managers regarding the takeaways they've had regarding the Grocery choice media coverage.

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Should government regulate mobile data? The EU thinks so

I regard mobile internet access as of strategic concern to Australia's development as a connected nation.

While fixed wire broadband is also crucial, mobile access is the best approach for filling the gaps cost-effectively in a large low-population nation such as Australia. Also mobile internet supports ubiquitous instant access to information, which fixed broadband does not.

This is why I felt it important enough to write a blog post regarding the cost of data in recently released Australian iPhone plans.

As such I have found Paul Budde's article, Regulators expose data roaming rip-off, very interesting.

In it Paul discusses how the European Commission has chastised telecommunications companies for their mobile data charging practices. This is because the large prices being charged are actively inhibiting the growth of mobile internet use in Europe and having flow-on long-term economic impacts.

To quote (bolding is mine),

Data as charged per MB also remains excessive: in most countries (with the notable exceptions of the Czech Republic , Malta , Hungary , Latvia , Poland and Slovakia) charges fell between June 2007 and March 2008. Nevertheless, in four markets (Iceland , Luxembourg , Poland and Slovakia) the retail charge per MB is above E10. According to the GSM Association (GSMA) the average price for downloading a MB of data is now just over E5.

Lack of transparency remains a serious problem, in that most consumers are unaware of prices for data roaming or of the amount of data being used. This in turn has led to the ‘bill shock’ which is proving to be one of the principal brakes on customers using mobile data roaming.

The article concludes with details of the charging regime in Denmark which highlights the level of overcharging of consumers by telcos in the data space.

I can appreciate that telecommunications providers are using data charges to offset falling fixed line voice revenues. However at some point this becomes an economic brake and of national concern.

I only hope that this occurs sooner rather than later in Australia - I believe that we have already seen economic damage due to the broadband drought - although I am not aware of any report ever having been commissioned to assess the opportunity cost of high broadband costs in the late 1990s and early 2000s.

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Can we use prediction markets to improve government consultation?

Prediction markets are a technique used to predict the likelihood of outcomes using values tied to events. So far they've proven to be at least as accurate as other predictive approaches, and significantly more engaging.

A popular example is the Hollywood Stock Exchange which allows individuals using virtual money to buy and sell shares in movie stars and movies, thereby reflecting whether their star is rising or falling. This market correctly predicted 32 of 39 big-category Oscar nominees and 7 of 8 top category winners in 2006 (reported by Wikipedia).


A serious corporate decision making tool?
Prediction markets are now beginning to be considered as a serious tool for corporate decision making, with Zdnet reporting in Predictive markets: Can they work for the enterprise? that Best Buys, Corning, Google and other organisations are now using the approach to support other predictive techniques.

General Electric, France Telecom, Microsoft, Hewlett-Packard, Renault, Eli Lilly, Pfizer, Siemens, Masterfoods, Arcelor Mittal, Starwood and other organisations also use prediction markets.


Other uses for prediction markets
The technique is also useful in usability design - give focus group participants a certain number of dollars to spend on features and observe how they prioritise relative value.

Given that prediction markets can utilise web technologies to reach much broader audiences than is cost-effective for market research and focus groups, these markets are a viable technique for governments seeking another perspective on what is most important to their constituents.


Prediction markets in government
The Singaporean government's Agency for Science, Technology and Research has already used a prediction market to forecast long term social and technology trends.

Government Futures is using a market to predict social and economic trends in the US.

This approach could also be applied to help legislators determine the details of government policy, the types of initiatives that should be undertaken by government agencies in support of policies and even how they should be communicated to citizens.

In fact a US Economics Professor, Robin Hanson, has outlined a form of government that operates on the basis of prediction markets, termed a Futarchy, in the paper Shall we vote on value, but bet on benefits? (PDF). In a nutshell he suggests that,

To make use of speculative markets, we can “vote on values, but bet on beliefs.” We now use democracy both to decide what we want, and to decide how to get what we want. We might instead still have democracy say want we want, but let speculative markets say how to get what we want.

That is, elected representatives might define a formal measure of “national welfare”
(analogous to GDP) and manage its measurement after the fact. Market speculators would then say which proposed policies they expected to raise national welfare as so defined.

The basic rule of government would then Publish Postbe this: when speculative markets clearly estimate that a proposed policy would increase expected national welfare, that policy becomes law.

As yet I am unaware of any use of prediction market techniques within Australian government, however given their use in the corporate world and by at least one other government, I can see utility for the approach alongside other forecasting techniques.

If anyone is aware of the use of prediction markets in Australian government, drop me a line.

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How well does government secure customer information online?

Privacy Awareness week is coming up later this month (as is the Security in Government conference), but as I mentioned to a colleague on Thursday, every week needs to be privacy week at a government agency.

Privacy is a sticky problems for all organisations. No security system is perfect and, to-date, as technology has advanced the threats to guard against have increased.

At some point every organisations needs to make a trade off between the services they offer customers, the channels through which they are offered, the convenience of using secure services and the cost of raising security versus the risk of security breaches versus customer complaints regarding service levels.

The size and nature of government makes effective security imperative. The Government ID leaks report, prepared by Consumerreports.org, highlighted that more than 1 in 5 US privacy breaches are traceable back to the public sector. This reflects the size of government and amount of data it must collect, store and share, as much as it reflects security levels.

The report also commented that,

When a brokerage firm or retailer has a data leak, consumers can take their business elsewhere, as almost one-third of breach victims do, according to a recent study by the Ponemon Institute, a research group in Traverse City, Mich. But as customers of the government, consumers don’t have a choice about giving personal data to federal, state, and local officials.

In other words, people must provide information to government, but there is no financial incentive for government to maximise security. The impetus for security in the public sector has to come from political will backed up by appropriate legislation.


So how well does government do in securing customer information?
In the US the 2007 Computer Security report card (PDF) prepared for the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee in May this year, gave the US government a 'C' for computer security, up from a 'C-' the previous year.

While some departments stood out with 'A' scores, such as the Justice Department, a number scored 'F's, such as the Department of Treasury and the Department of Veteran's Affairs.

In Australia there is no such security ready reckoner. However the Australian National Audit Office (ANAO) frequently conducts security audits on various departments and agencies.

These are tabled in parliament and made available to be publicly scrutinised, so the media and public have access to quite detailed information on government security.

Based on these reports, Australia's government is doing reasonably well. As in the private sector there is no such thing as perfect security, and opportunities for improvement do exist, however there is a cultural and strategic focus on security and agencies do the best they can with the resources available to them.

Personally, considering the level and severity of incidents reported in Australia compared to the UK and US, for example, Australian government seems to have a good track record, albeit not a perfect one.


What can government do better?
Staff
This stems from a conversation I had on Thursday over lunch, where the discussion turned to the different types of security that can be put in pace.

Australian government seems to do quite well in guarding against external risks and protecting our networks and computer servers from attacks.

The weak point in many security systems are the employees. They need access to information about customers to do their jobs, but exposing the data can raise the risk of it being publicly exposed. This can occur in many ways, confidential data being copied only USB sticks or emailed home to be worked on, the well-known lost laptop/DVD situation, where a laptop or DVD containing customer records are accidentally left somewhere or stolen.

While there are strong guidelines to help reduce and address these issues, another approach is to investigate data-level security which prevents given data from being accessed except by authorised users.

Data protection can be accomplished through mechanisms - which reduces the human risk. It is also now quite developed for certain types of data, for example the 256bit security embedded in Adobe documents.

Customers
A second area government can focus on is customer education. There's less value in centrally securing information if customers do not guard their usernames and passwords.

This can be partially managed through systems enforcing more secure passwords and using different techniques to educate customers on how they should protect their own computers against key loggers and other hackers. Another part involves being more transparent to customers on how secure a system is and how diligence on the customer's part improves the system's security.

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Integrating online channels into government contact centres

An area where I've achieved limited traction (so far) in my agency is over integrating online channels into our service delivery contact centres.

Phone is a primary customer engagement channel for our agency and will continue to remain important as a way to reach customers who are financially unable or choose not to use online.

However, just as the marketing and communications industry is now addressing the challenge of reaching customers who no longer engage with television or print (The last episode of The Gruen Transfer discusses this), customer contact centres are beginning to have to consider how to support online channels to engage customers.

This is summed up in an article in ComputerWorld, Contacting Gen Y the Web 2.0 way, Phone and email are no longer enough, says Nortel,

Company contact centres need to accommodate Web 2.0 channels such as social networking to stay in touch with Generation Y — those in their 20s and early 30s, says Darren Leffler, a Sydney-based product marketing manager with Nortel.

Phone and email are no longer enough, he told a TUANZ audience last week. Rather than seeing themselves as the centre of a marketing and support realm, and the contact centre as the interface to a ring of customers and prospects, companies need to become fully participating members of the online communities, “because that’s where Generation Y are”.

Contact centres tend to use complex technology platforms, replacing them maybe twice a decade.

Therefore any government agency - or other organisation - currently considering replacing their existing contact centre platform needs to be looking very closely at how to integrate all currently existing channels into their offering, even if they have no plans to begin to support the online channel for several years.

After all, a government agency should be customer first, not phone first (or online first).

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