On the poor quality of official web sites

In the days of the quill pen, kings, bishops, anyone in authority, ensured that their own scribes and secretaries were the very best. After the invention of moveable type, from the days of Aldus Manutius right up to the present, there evolved a whole science of how to present printed matter to best effect upon the page. Every advantage that this science could offer was used to lend dignity to public documents of companies and official organizations. Anything less branded its authors as incompetent amateurs. In the new medium of the world wide web, the science of how to present information to best effect is by no means mature, yet it appears to be neglected, especially by the very organizations which vaunt their adoption of new technology. I would like to suggest some reasons for this, and to sketch briefly a set of guidelines that should be adopted for the creation of websites. Possible reasons for lack of awareness about web site design Managers are content to leave the technical details to young technophiles, whose enthusiasm for bells and whistles is greater than their appreciation of what the website is intended to achieve. Those who appraise the site after it is built are unaware of the fact that HTML was designed to separate content from appearance, and that the site may look and perform totally differently when viewed with different systems (or even with differently configured browsers on identical systems). Managers may feel punch-drunk under the onslaught of technical change and become so hypnotised by a desire for the latest innovation that they fail to ask themselves whether simpler solutions may not perform better. Technical staff may be locked into the use of one particular brand of computer or software, possibly because of commercial arm-twisting, and do not consider the needs of a heterogeneous public.

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