Dear South African Government,
There are a lot of people in this country who don’t have access to the internet on computers. Some of them can browse the internet on their mobile phones.
The amount of government websites that are published and are only available to those on desktops, is ridiculous. As an example I have given a couple of screen shots of government sites and how they would show up on Opera Mini. This would be the best way for South Africans to read the internet as it reduces the amount of bandwidth needed to download each site. It would reduce the bandwidth more if there was a mobi site of each Government Website.
South African Government Websites shown in Opera Mini
1st Example – http://www.gov.za. Btw, try and go to http://gov.za and you will see that the website doesn’t even work. There is a lot of information here and it can only be zoomed in and looked at.
2nd Example - http://www.gcis.gov.za This is a website that I would have thought would be the best and still no mobile version. By the way, GCIS is the part of the South African Government that develops the websites.
Example 3 - http://www.ancyl.org.za/ Now, I might be called a “bloody agent” but if the ANC youth league wants their constituents to read their latest news, shouldn’t they have a mobile site?
On a side note here, the ANC Youth League has a Myspace page. Rather retro I know, but the most interesting thing is that they have 1 friend.
They also have a Twitter Page, at least this is mobile friendly.
Example 4 - http://www.elections.org.za I understand that the IEC is independent, but they still are part of the South African system. So if I didn’t have access to IEC information and wanted to check out the IEC Website, then this is what it would like.
So what can the SA Government do about this?
There are 3 schools of thought to implement a mobile friendly site. Once this has been done, you need a beautiful, user friendly, mobile friendly site.
School 1: They need to make a dedicated mobi domain that shows the mobile site, so the address would be something like http://www.iec.mobi. That is fine and if you promote it then people will know. Or you can have a browser dependant redirect to point it to the new domain. Me? I think that this is a waste of money, it is fine for the corporates, but I think that that is weird for the government.
School 2: Have a subdomain like m.gov.za or mobi.gov.za or even mobile.gov.za. Also fine, just please have a redirect that recognises what browser is being used and redirect it to the Mobile Site.
School 3: Have a script that recognises the browser and displays a mobile friendly site that uses the same domain.
All of these would be fine. Now maybe the people who develop the websites for the South African Government and the ANC Youth League and the IEC, might not know how to redirect to a mobile version of the site, there are many free options on the internet.
Final Thoughts on the South African Government Websites.
Guys, we have a beautiful country, please could be have beautiful websites?
Here are some examples of the designs of the South African Government’s websites. I have also rated them, this is subjective.
The South African Government website, is one of the best looking of all the government websites. Well done, 3/5 stars.
The GCIS website, ugly and cramped. 2/5 stars.
The South African Parliament website, Simple and Effective, the flash is badly implemented. 3/5 stars.
South African Neighbours websites
Now why can’t we look at our neighbours and see what they are doing. We are supposed to be the power house of Africa, so why are we being beaten by our “smaller” neighbours?
The Namibian Government website, very simple, well laid out. 4/5 stars.
Swaziland Government, nicely presented and simple to navigate. 3/5 stars.
Regards,
Paul Ogier
Professional Website Developer.
Update 29 April 2011 : So I received a few emails about this post, the majority of the emails say that even though the government websites are bad, I should also look at the political party websites. This will also show who cares about those who can only browse the web on their cellphones.
Here we go, 1st up the ANC.
Their desktop website is actually quite good. It is simple to read and well set out. It is quite yellow, but that is fine. 4/5 Stars.
And just like the South African Government websites, the ANC doesn’t cater for the masses on their cell phones.
2nd up, the official opposition, the Democratic Alliance.
The Democratic Alliance has the most beautiful websites of all the political parties in South Africa. 5/5 stars.
And what about their mobile site, well they are one of the few websites that actually have a mobile site.
The Democratic Alliance is the clear winner here. Have you seen any better websites for the South African government or political parties? Please comment below or send me an email and bring my attention to it.
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