Karen

Sorry about “that old chestnut” but I had two non-UK readers who emailed me about it!

Re the HMRC example you gave – we might just as well use telnet or good old fashioned ASCII output over dial-up.

On the issue of finding ‘stuff’ on official web sites, I usually end up doing a Google advanced site search rather than use the site’s own search engine or navigation. But others are working on our behalf. For local government web sites there is the excellent Google Custom Search Engine http://www.lgsearch.net/ and for direct.gov.uk the aptly named Directionlessgov search at http://www.directionlessgov.com/. Both superior to UK local and central gov web site search engines!

Karen

“Note for those of you who do not know Paul “hip-consultant”: he does not do hip replacements! He does Home Information Packs and also Energy Performance Certificates. For those of you who do not live in England or Wales the explanation will be meaningless, so just forget about it ”

that old chestnut !!! though not heard it for a while, though many thanks for the plug !!!

If it will help ease confusion i will just call myself Property blog on your blog and slip in a keyword at the same time, lol.(Not that i believe it makes alot of difference)

Now back to the point i visited for It does seem on a general point that private orgs are taking their web presence more seriously than government sites. It could be argued this is as they are obviously more interested in making a ‘profit’ and realise the negative impact this may have. However, CLG,HMRC etc surely should be looking at improving efficiencies etc, now more than ever and web performance is certainly a big way of doing this. I have had to ring and speak to HMRC as the web page in question without CSS sheets attached can give rise to confusion in my opinion.

Here is an example (nice simple url, just what we like, there will be no forgetting it !!!)

http://customs.hmrc.gov.uk/channelsPortalWebApp/channelsPortalWebApp.portal?_nfpb=true&_pageLabel=pageLibrary_PublicNoticesAndInfoSheets&propertyType=document&columns=1&id=HMCE_CL_000345#P171_14772

In addition, if this web work is contracted out surely it puts into question the contractor or at least their internal QA processes.

My other little rant with some of the ‘official sites is the organisation of the content. I do realise the amount of information they hold and publish is vast, but the structure of the sites do not make it easy to find. The HIP and EPC stuff is a great example and i obviously visit these sections on CLG quite often.

Thanks for the update. I have sent in feedback, comments, reports etc so often about this and they just don’t bother to do anything about it. Perhaps they have decided to blacklist me

What annoys me so much is that there is some brilliant stuff being done in local government – and yes, some really awful stuff – but it should be central government key web sites setting the example and far too many of them are not

Rant over

Note for those of you who do not know Paul “hip-consultant”: he does not do hip replacements! He does Home Information Packs and also Energy Performance Certificates. For those of you who do not live in England or Wales the explanation will be meaningless, so just forget about it

Karen

If a visitor told me about an error such as this on my site as am sure many other small bloggers would also do i would get it fixed asap. It really is not acceptable by the HMRC in my opinion.

Had and have this problem. I let them know not too long back and they seemed completely un concerned, however promote online use as much as possible.

However, the ‘go back to firefox 2 is just incredible and almost unbelievable.

The HMRC web site is OK when it comes to finding the forms for self assessment and VAT filings, and general information but I have given up trying to find very specific VAT or SA information. Their own site search engine is abominable. I now head straight for Google and do an advanced site search for the information. There is also an problem with one of the pages leading up to the VAT filings sections when viewed in Firefox. It all depends on which route you take and I can’t remember which one it is! There seems to be a problem with the style sheet and you end up with a page that is basically just text. It’s not just me as others have reported the problem. So I’m afraid HMRC does not get full marks when it comes to “any modern browser”

Karen

‘The content on this website is moving

In what sense?’

‘Moving’ in the sense of being axed. By the way DWP are looking for someone to help shut down the Pension Service website – sadly it’s a bit too late to apply: http://bit.ly/Uh4NF

“In what sense?”. Backwards I think, until it falls over the cliff edge! In any case, by the time I retire I doubt there’ll be any money left in the state pension pot.

Re my MP, I’m on to it or will be first thing tomorrow. Currently busy sorting out a web site for hubby and a colleague of his. Heavy duty scientific stuff with hundreds of symbols, sub and superscripts. Hmmm, maybe I should adopt the pension site’s attitude. Viewable only in Netscape 0.9, then no-one at all could get in and I won’t have to bother sorting out all the equations.

Karen

I assume you mean zimmer frames

It’s horrendous how many organisations still insist on using IE6. Some of them do it because they have equally ancient database services and software that will only work in IE6. One wonders which IE 6 security loop-holes the databases need in order to work.

Karen

The content on this website is moving

In what sense?

How about sending this blog post to your MP and ask them to ask questions?

When can I pension off IE6? It seems unlikely at present.