Parliament's new forum site proves 80-20 rule

I was looking at the Cabinet Office website’s section on Consultations. I clicked on a link ‘Less is More‘. It took me to a ‘page not found’ error page. You couldn’t make that up. The new eConsultations website for Parliament is ‘the result of a great deal of effort from the Hansard Society over a … Continue reading Parliament's new forum site proves 80-20 rule

Can No10's new web enthusiasm survive transition?

I hear that we could be seeing more Prime Ministerial activity on YouTube in the next couple of weeks, following the disappointing Party-led efforts. With government business largely on hold for the local elections, and with the staff presumably in limbo ahead of The Great Transition, I’m told the web team at Downing Street is … Continue reading Can No10's new web enthusiasm survive transition?

New Dept for Transport site misses opportunities

The new post-Stellent website for the Department for Transport has now gone live… and somebody has clearly been reading the Web 2.0 style guide. Big table-free layouts, gradient backgrounds, reflections, drop shadows… actually very pretty. And I don’t think I’ve said that too often about government websites. The most striking aspect of the site is … Continue reading New Dept for Transport site misses opportunities

Simon Moores is too pessimistic

I don’t disagree with the thinking described by Simon Moores in a piece on silicon.com: While being joined-up may offer a real advantage to government departments, the privacy risks to the rest of us are even greater. Until the public sector can demonstrate a better track record of success with personal data than it has … Continue reading Simon Moores is too pessimistic

School league tables (2)

The next tranche of English school league tables has been published today, covering secondary and post-16 performance. As with the primary school league tables beforehand, they are blessed with Google Map goodness. And yes, for the record, the user-centric redesign and the web-2.0-ification was a project I led. I said more about this in a … Continue reading School league tables (2)

My latest mashup: on Westminster and web services

I’ve been experimenting a bit more with Ajax, XML and all that good stuff… and have come up with a Google Map of all UK MPs. Each constituency is shown as a marker on the map, grouped by the usual UK government regions to make it a bit more manageable. Click on a marker, and … Continue reading My latest mashup: on Westminster and web services