eGovernment

In yesterday’s e-Governmentat large, Alan presents an interesting thought: “The e-government targetis announced – everyone rushes to build websites and, because they are hard, few transactions get added. Websites grow exponentially, transactions arithmetically at best”. But only in the beginning: He has made a nice slide to illustrate what he means:

“The trick, obviously, is to recognise early that this is going on and take steps to reduce the website count – that’s the bit where good central infrastructure, consistent look and feel, well-researched customer feedback, focused contentaudits/rationalistion, content tagging (metadata and taxonomy)and RSS-feeds come in”. Good points!

I think Denmark is getting near the turning point, but mainly because we have already all built websites all over the place, lots of websites, and struggle to maintain them, and coordinate between them. We are today seeing a number of “mergers and acquisitions” on this front, but not (yet) at any large scale.

So, today Register reported, UK Govt slammed for duff Web sites, about a report – commissioned by Web design outfitInteractive Bureau, London and conducted byPorter Research – which asks:”What is the point of the Prime Minister…having a site, which announces the opportunity for foreign journalists to ask him questions, yet gives no opportunity for members of the British Public to do so?” The report foundthat three quarters of all the UK government websites are in need of an overhaul, with the most widespread and aggravating fault being the presentation of information.