'Common look and feel', rationalisation and egov success

Public Sector Forums (PSF)'s Ian Cuddy reports that Worcestershire's councils have gone with a 'common look and feel' policy (aka 'standardised').

In the Twitter conversation it's been pointed out that the common design fails some standards and a link to a policy document explaining what they've done in detail hasn't yet been found (Cuddy is planning a story for PSF on Worcestershire's move).

Also mentioned thus far is the obvious link to rationalisation and savings: centralised web teams. Also procurement savings on Content Management Systems (and is anyone really pitching the wonders of Wordpress at local councils was my thought).

My first thought, though, was have they got the idea from the Singaporeans? People whose egov development is so good they are now seriously trying to export how they do what they do?

Singapore, Hong Kong, Canada (and NASA) all have what's called a 'common look and feel' policy. This is a set of standards which all government websites are required to adhere to.

Here's Canada's policy, interestingly run out of their Treasury department:

Common Look and Feel Standards for the Internet (CLF 2.0)

The Common Look and Feel Standards for the Internet were approved by Treasury Board ministers on December 7, 2006 and are mandatory for all institutions represented in Schedule I, I.1 and II of the Financial Administration Act with a two-year deadline ending December 31, 2008, for the conversion of existing sites. Web sites launched after January 1, 2007, must conform to the new standards.

The Internet is an increasingly important communication tool providing an effective means for the public and the government to exchange information and for the government to offer its services in the official language and at the time and place of Canadians' choosing. The consistent and predictable presentation of government services and content offered by Common Look and Feel standards facilitate effective online interaction.

The new Common Look and Feel Standards for the Internet were developed to reflect modern practices on the Web, changes in technology and issues raised by the Web community over the past six years as well as to improve navigation and format elements. The standards were rewritten to eliminate duplication and conflict with other Treasury Board policy instruments and were reformatted to improve their structure and organization.

The new standards comprise:

• Part 1: Standard on Web Addresses
• Part 2: Standard on the Accessibility, Interoperability and Usability of Web sites
• Part 3: Standard on Common Web Page Formats
• Part 4: Standard on Email

Resources to implement CLF 2.0, including the template package, can be found in the Toolbox. A crosswalk table outlining the evolution of the policy requirements is also available on the Common Look and Feel Web site.

The Cabinet Office when drawing up its guidance (not 'standard', note) for government websites - Last Updated: 4/5/2007 - makes mention that EU policy has a recommendation for adoption of 'common look and feel' "in line with the Canadian model".

But this is only placed within the context of accessibility.

In my experience there is very little interaction between UK egov and the world outside and what there is is limited to the US and occasionally the EU. It's also my experience that the concept of a 'common look and feel' policy is practically unknown (though not entirely unknown).

Why aren't we seeing examples from places like Canada, Singapore and Hong Kong at UK egov seminars and conferences? Wouldn't it be useful for those in local government like those in Worcestershire to know that others have 'been there, done that' and 'worn', with justified pride, 'the teeshirt'?

Text still rules

This is a really excellent reminder of a web basic, which is unfortunately often forgotten as websites add and add and add and in the process become bloated.

“Think of your Web audience as lazy, selfish and ruthless,” said Michael Gold, West Gold Editorial principal quoting usability guru Jakob Nielsen’s apt description of today’s impatient, task-oriented Web audience during his remarks at a recent ONA panel. “Web audiences are on a mission—they’re task-oriented.”


Text matters on the Web from Martin Ricard on Vimeo.

Related posts of mine:

• Keep cutting those word counts
• Must links always be blue
• Simplicity in web design
• Text text boring text

HT: ONA

Cute animals: Parrot shags human

Here's Mark Carwardine talking about the efforts to keep this species alive.



More from this fabulous BBC series.

'I feel like when I'm publishing a web page I'm an artist'

'A new 33.6kbps modem will move the internet much faster into your computer'

Daily Show archive blocked for UK: Channel Four display several layers of stupid

UK fans of America's leading satirical TV show got a shock today when they discovered they could no longer view the show on its website.

The website has forums where overseas fans of the show have been venting their rage at the block. Not just UK viewers but those from Ireland who can no longer watch the show on the UK licensee Channel Four's website yet also remain blocked from watching it on the show's website, apparently because C4 hasn't bothered to tell the Daily Show's channel, Comedy Central, that it's blocked the Irish. People in the rest of Europe have no such problems.

There's no statement from either Channel Four or the show about this out-of-the-blue block but it appears from past Daily Show statements on their forum that they only do the blocking on the request of a country's license holder. Incidentally, I was able to leave a comment on their website and I see that the show's producers do respond to comment. Channel Four offers no such option, there is no comment space offered for the show and they have no forum or similar space for viewers to talk back to them.

What is particularly sad/appalling about Channel Four's actions is that all online video from the extensive Daily Show online archive is now being blocked for UK - yet Channel Four is only showing the past week's shows online! Do they even have rights to episodes from before they started showing the Daily Show, because I can't watch clips from 2000.

What is so stupid about this (and it has multiple layers of stupid) is that I have been posting clips on my blog which promotes the show Channel Four have rights to! Now none of those embedded clips work and so the show gets no (free) promotion from me or the many others who embed clips.

When the Daily Show's sister program The Colbert Report was being shown on a UK cable channel you couldn't watch clips on their website - but you could watch clips embedded on other websites. This makes complete sense as if you liked what you saw it promoted the cable channel's show and made it far more likely that you'd bother to subscribe to it. It also makes it appear that C4's block request included blocking embedded clips.

At the same time that one bit of C4 takes this completely stupid action another makes clips from C4 news freely available, even ad free!


Here's another stupidity. I have watched clips from US shows which have served up country specific ads. On sites like HuffPost I get UK ads. So if you can recognise I'm from the UK you can monetise it to the benefit of the UK license holder. Hardly rocket science.
 What C4 are doing is tragic for the Daily Show itself as it is going to lose a significant chunk of its UK audience. All - one would assume - in the name of driving viewers back to watching the show on More4 ON TV!

I hope that the show's resident Brit, the hugely popular John Oliver, learns about it and tells Channel Four to stop behaving like idiots.

Of course people can watch Daily Show clips if they know how to get around the block by hiding their computer's ip address. This means C4 lose out on any hope of ad revenue. I won't even bother linking to how because a simple Google (or a look on the Daily Show's forums where they allow comments explaining how) will tell you what to do. So not only are C4 idiots but they think the rest of us UK fans of the show are too.

Addendum: Tony Lee has commented on the cross-post of this on the Online Journalism blog that:

Channel 4 denies the above.  I wrote them and got the following response:

Thank you for contacting us regarding THE DAILY SHOW WITH JON STEWART.

We would advise that although we do indeed hold UK broadcast rights for the series, the overall rights to the series are owned by Comedy Central themselves. Content on their website, as with other American networks, is blocked to residents not in the US. These blocks are placed by the channel themselves, not Channel 4.

It is the same with content on UK broadcasters website being blocked to those outside the UK. The reason for this is copyright and broadcasting licence terms.

We would suggest that you therefore direct your complaint on this issue to Comedy Central. You can do so via the following link:

http://www.comedycentral.com/help/questionsCC.jhtml

Channel 4 is not responsible for third-party websites.

Thank you again for taking the time to contact us here at Channel 4 and for your interest in our programming.

Regards,

Rachel Salinger
Channel 4 Viewer Enquiries

This is the exact opposite of what Comedy Central say on their forum - so I will post this statement there and see what they have to say for themselves.

There is an actly petition:

petition @ComedyCentral to  lift the IP block for #dailyshow video online UK http://act.ly/mr RT to sign #actly

Addendum two


A fix has been posted on the Daily Show fan forum (ironically) http://forum.thedailyshow.com/tds/board/message?board.id=support_2008_oct&message.id=2897#M2897 (and it works)

Video: Convergence and technology - Did You Know

The latest version of the "Shift happens" videos updated for autumn 2009, developed by XPLANE in partnership with The Economist. This 'Did You Know' video focuses on the changing media landscape, including convergence and technology.

There are a lot of these videos out there which throw stats at you, this is the best one I've seen yet.

The Eight Stages of Genocide

Crossposted from my new outlet, Cosmodaddy



How can we predict and prevent genocides? Greg Stanton outlines his groundbreaking theory on the eight stages of genocide: classification, symbolization, dehumanization, organization, polarization, preparation, extermination and denial.

Genocide in Darfur, he argues, has proceeded through these stages before our eyes. Genocide could have been prevented by means of intervention at any one of a number of critical points in the past, but the international response has amounted to too little, too late.

This has always been the case and I don't see this changing anytime soon, despite the best efforts of fantastic groups like Avaaz though groups like them remain our best hope, as does the work of people like Stanton who help people understand that - yes - things can be done and that genocide is not some 'natural, unstoppable force' like an earthquake or a tornado.

One starting point would be for those responsible for doing nothing to be seen to learn lessons and admit their errors. For 'never again!' to mean anything, it's essential. This is why the campaign around Belgium, for example, to own up to its horrific history in the Congo is so important, as important as for Serbia to own up to its role in the Balkan's genocides in the 90s.

It's also close - very close - to home. This is from a post of mine last year about Hillary Clinton's claim that she tried to stop the Rwandan genocide.

Rewriting history over Rwanda

The Americans weren't alone. The British, the French, the Belgians and much of the rest of Africa all either didn't do anything or actively stopped aid. They all looked for their own interests and none had any interest in stopping genocide.

It was Britain's ambassador to the UN, Sir David Hannay, who proposed that the UN reduce its force. A year after the slaughter, the Foreign Office sent a letter to an international inquiry saying that it still did not accept the term genocide, seeing discussion on whether the massacres constituted genocide as "sterile". Then Ministers John Major, Douglas Hurd, Malcolm Rifkind and Lynda Chalker have never even been asked about their role.

Virtually no-one emerges heroically (Canadian peacekeeper Roméo Dallaire is one and his view on Clinton's claims would be interesting to hear). In fact I would urge anyone to make themselves read the harrowing background as an object lesson in international power politics and its victims - a million of them in Rwanda. There's a blog which covers the 100 days before and during the slaughter in detail. 'A People Betrayed' by Linda Melvern is very good.

For Hillary to now try to adopt that heroic mantle is, as commentators have noted, worse than 'monstrous'.

Almost - almost - as monstrous as this comment from Gordon Brown:

"You cannot have Rwanda again because information would come out far more quickly about what is actually going on and the public opinion would grow to the point where action would need to be taken."

Where is Twitter on the genocides happening right now in the DR of Congo? Or the slaughter of indigenous people in Peru? Where is Brown? Where is Sarah Brown!?

Here is a list of the genocides taking place now in the world.

The media doesn't give a damn and, unfortunate but true, neither do most Twitter users.

HT: Domino

Why they are screaming 'socialism'

A commentator to Andrew Sullivan's blog gives some background on the right-wing American 'tea baggers' which is essential information for anyone wanting to understand WTF is going on.

It's worth quoting in full:

Of course they are screaming 'socialism'. They've been doing that since the 50s at least. They're not talking about economic redistribution of wealth - they never have been. They've been talking about redistribution of privilege this whole time. They called MLK a communist because he wanted blacks to have the same rights as whites, and to them that was a redistribution of the privilege that whites had 'earned'.

In their view, white, Christian, heterosexuals have earned something that gays, non-Christians, and non-heteros have failed to work hard enough at. It's been a class war from the outset, just not one based around income or net worth - mostly because the whites in the south were economically pretty bad off and blacks in the north were catching up to them.

This picture shows they were pushing the same buttons half a century ago that they are today. Anti-christ, communism - it's all the same as it is today and is well known code. It's why the protesters will decry socialism today but wouldn't have under Bush - it's all tied to race and other social objectives and has nothing really to do with taxation, deficits, and big government. You probably missed it when you came to the US, but this is pretty old game - particularly to guys like Carter that grew up around it.

Past posts: 

• US health 'debate': the dangers of rhetoric and the need for responsibility 
• Daily Mail has joined the American lunatic fringe

 

Seduced by huge c*ck..

So.....what if you were restricted in the real world to only 140 Characters?

New Firefox add-ons

Image via Wikipedia

It's a while since I've done one of these and my add-ons have actually changed quite a bit.

With the last Firefox major upgrade a number of them failed to update and others took ages to update. This now seems to have settled down but I have had to find replacements for a few that remain incompatible and for some I haven't found an easy replacement.

Gone are

TinyUrl Creator · ScrapBook · ReminderFox · Menu Editor · Advanced Dork · Text/Plain and one which I would like the functionality of but I haven't found a simple compatible replacement LinkChecker.

New are

bit.ly preview
With the bit.ly Preview Plugin for Firefox, whenever you hover over a bit.ly URL on any web page, we display a tooltip showing the Page Title, Long URL, and any Click Data we have about the page the URL links to.
Extended Copy Menu
Provides the option to copy selection as plain text or html.
Fasterfox Lite
Performance and network tweaks for Firefox, without the Enhanced Prefetching.
FireFTP
ScribeFire
A full-featured blog editor that integrates with your browser and lets you easily post to your blog. I may drop this and I hardly ever use it.
Shareaholic
Shareaholic is the ultimate tool for sharing stuff with 60+ destination services including Facebook, Twitter, Gmail, Delicious, MySpace, Wordpress, and more!
Shorten URL
Shorten long URL from context menu or toolbar button with your selected URL shortener and display the result in location bar.
View Dependencies
Adds a tab listing dependencies and their sizes in the Page Info window.
Zemanta
Contextually relevant suggestions of links, pictures, related content and tags will make your blogging fun again.