The IEC saga: an early warning to other national standards offenders
As a long time advocate for best practices in web design, W3C standards compliancy, and the open source movement, this quite simply blows my mind on so many different levels:
The Independent Electoral Commission will spend R3 million to fix its broken website as complaints mount.
Wow!
Allow me to first provide an overview of the events leading up to this latest development of absurdity in the IEC website saga, before I add my own thoughts.
In late August, Alistair Otter published an article on Tectonic (a popular open source-related technology site) about how the South African Independent Electoral Commission (IEC)'s website was denying access to visitors not using the Internet Explorer web browser on a Microsoft Windows platform. That in itself was nothing new: in January 2006 I blogged about their site, listed among others, pointing out that exact shortcoming - see State of South African political websites. Ian Gilfillan commented, bringing to my attention that South Africa's political web wasn't any better in 2004 either. However, the focus of that post shifted to the DA in particular, because I successfully compromised the security of their CMS. ;)
To date, over two months later, the IEC have made no discernible effort to correct this flaw. Visitors to http://www.iec.org.za ("www" subdomain required - WHY!?) using any browser other than Internet Explorer will receive this message:
Our server detected that you are using a browser or operating system (e.g. Netscape, Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome etc.) which is currently incompatible with our website. The current website is only compatible with Microsoft Internet Explorer V4 (and upward) on the Windows operating system.
In the days that followed Alistair's Tectonic post, Aslam Raffee (chairman of the South African Government OSS working group), Daniel Mashao (the CTO of SITA) and Helen King (Principal Advisor of The Shuttleworth Foundation) laid a complaint with the Human Rights Commission (HRC) against the IEC for excluding non-Internet Explorer users from its website. Aslam has made the full complaint available on this blog.
The latest developments that made headlines today, in response to the HRC complaint, is that the IEC will be spending R3 million to fix their broken website. And when they say broken, they're referring to the fact that it was designed and developed (way back in 1998) using Microsoft's proprietary technologies - so in effect they will be redesigning and redeveloping it to support all their visitors. My response to this news echos what everyone else has said.
On top of that, Karl Fischer - a well-known open source advocate - launched the No Firefox! No Vote! campaign today:
...urging Internet users to email or fax IEC chief information officer Libisi Maphanga, to demand that the organisation make its website available to all users.
LYW Karl. Visit Stop Digital Apartheid to get in on the act.
Raoul Snyman, a fellow web developer, has published An Open Letter to Mr Maphanga, CIO of the IEC.
So where am I going with all of this?
Well, regular readers of this blog will know that in the past, I had a tendency to name and shame the big brand national websites that failed acceptable support for web standards (to the point that I even maintained an "Evangelism list" for a while), in an effort to get them to realise and admit their shortcomings, and as a result make the appropriate changes for the benefit of their users. I doubt it made any difference, but if anything I hope it provided some insight for those who stumbled upon it.
Six years on, with a wide variety of modern web browsers and technologies fighting a new browser war, there sadly still exists an ignorant mindset that internet user's best interests should be disregarded in favour of designing and developing for a specific browser, platform or device. This has got to change.
The IEC have become the new posterchild for the return of the evangelism list.
My resolution is this: a public wiki or blog that shames (in a constructive manner) the local websites that fail an acceptable level of support for W3C web standards (ie. they're browser/platform/device incompatible), accessibility guidelines, and potentially also best practices in web design and development.
Alongside this list, links to local designers and developers who are accredited with providing the relevant services that meet this demand - and are willing to do it for a budget well within R3 million.
And for good measure, a list of sites that showcase the multitude of benefits associated with a standards-compliant, accessible and usable approach to modern web design.
If you like this idea and think it has the potential for good, lets hear your thoughts in the comments below, or you can contact me directly. Thanks.
- leave a comment
19 Comments
@lebogang: yes! excellent point on the language requirements, that will definitely need to be on the checklist.
Great point on the language requirements, glad it’s on the checklist.
It would also be prudent to somehow have a list of actionables for the persons in charge of the showcased websites. Take for example the vodacom3g rep on myadsl forums who responds timeously to queries or questions. If you extend that concept, you could list the steps needed to be taken to rectify the issues, with local designers or developers offering their services to complete the tasks. The person in charge of each site could then provide feedback or updates regarding the process which would provide openness and transparency in the development.
Just an idea of course. Look forward to hearing more.
If you are desperate, you go follow the please click here link from the warning page, you go to a page with a footer at the bottom that allows you to check the rest of the site out in firefox. The nobs forgot take that off….. I especially like the in the top left corner…… very leet
lol, clearly I need to go back to school and learn english again, even I can’t make sense of what I wrote.
A public wiki is a very good idea. The number of high profile sites that get away with the shoddiest practices is far larger than it should be. There also seems to be very little discussion around standards issues on local web sites. This would be a good way to get these issues to a wider platform, begin debate and, hopefully, grow from there.
At the top of my personal hitlist: the SABC web site hasn’t worked properly in Firefox in over a year.
And R3 million! That’s outrageous.
I have been preaching, the standards/simplicity gospel to Comp Sci friends of mine. Its been very hard. They are awesome coders (PHP/Javasvript) but suck at compliant code(xHTML/CSS). I am all for compliant sites and my aim is to get my team to ease up on the clutter, use meaningful names and validate their code.
Ajax is nice and all, but we can not have stuff flying and popping out all over the place on a corporate website . So in short..I am game :)
Well glad Translate.org.za got mentioned (off to check our standards compliance).
Important for us in terms of language support is that its done correctly. Sites MUST do browser detection with cookie overide and fallback. Our experience is that if anyone goes multilingual (hardly anyone in .gov.za) its all pointy clicky and the user doesn’t just seamlessly get their language.
Translate.org.za provides consulting to address multilingualism for online content, so rather use us then get embarrassed with badly implemented multilingualism that’s impossible to maintain.
I started a spreadsheet for tracking compliance, feel free to pull that data off or to use it as the repository:
http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=pTsRJimJxQuau5kY3cQJBFw
Explicit exclusion is not happening much. I’m sure there are some crummy browser detection scripts. What became more of a concern for me is that standards compliance is way down. This is the hidden problem of the IEC. Its the people on cellphones and with disabilities that are really suffering.
@lebogang: we want to bring our Firefox and OpenOffice.org translation back up-to-date so any volunteer recruitment to translate is appreciated :)
Another interesting article. It’s unbelievable that in this day and age we’re still dealing with issues like this!
There’s an article on Moneyweb that also mentions the IEC’s antiquated website.
Name, shame & flame them! I’m all for it. It’s the only way anything gets done in this country. :)
—- Response from the UDM —-
Dear Mr Fischer
Recent media reports stated that the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC)
website is not coping with the number of South Africans trying find out if
they are registered or where their closest registration point is. Problem
one is connecting to the site: “I have Internet Explorer, but get the
following error message when I logon: Internet Explorer cannot display the
webpage. No matter how many times I refresh… I’ve given up.”
Problem two; the IEC’s website’s exclusion of non-Internet Explorer users.
That is: “I, for instance, choose to use open source software… and I can’t
even access the IEC’s site! Why do I even try? They don’t take me (the
voter) seriously, why should I take them seriously.”
The UDM believes in transparency, dissemination of and access to
information. The IEC should pull its socks up! The Electoral Commission’s
Act, in Chapter 2, has spelled out the IEC’s responsibilities. In the same
chapter, paragraph 5) 2) b) it very specifically legally obliges the
Commission to “establish and maintain the necessary facilities for
collecting and disseminating information regarding electoral matters.” The
IEC is simply reneging on its responsibility.
We know that the internet is one of the quickest and best resources to
access information. One of the problems facing us this coming election is
voter apathy especially amongst young South Africans, who certainly must be
one of the biggest internet user-groups. The IEC must make accessing
election information and voter education consumer friendly; they cannot
discriminate based on your browser.
The IEC has a responsibility to ensure that all South African Internet users
can access the Commission’s site (at all times) irrespective of browser,
bandwidth or connection device.
Ms Jana Warffemius
UDM Webmaster
And trying to access the site today results in ‘Bad Request (Invalid Hostname)”. So it seems that the first step in spending 3 million is to just remove everything and provide nothing to nobody.
Had a couple of guys in the office failing to get through when using IE 7. IE 6 seems to work best. As for the R3 Million, I don’t buy it. The taxpayer is about to be ripped off once again.
Just to shift a bit from the ‘general’ consensus about that 3 million.
I don’t mind the 3 million being spent on the site — From I heard the last time around the IEC spent quite a bit on getting the ballot paper to be understood by ALL who can vote — maybe they are doing the same thing with the site — maybe also, they will merge it with other platforms (mobile) — maybe they are consolidating it to work also with the ‘election day counting’ (making the information available not only on tv, but radio, mobile, the net); maybe they are including ways for other platforms to be able to poll data from the site; maybe they are improving on security, authenticity of the information; maybe they are also integrating with home affairs, maybe they are migrating from platform to another; maybe they are also integrating it with GIS (Google Maps doesn’t count in Rural South/Africa); maybe they are prototyping it so as to use it across Africa, so it can work next time around? maybe they will include online videos, audio, live streaming; maybe its a 3 year contract; maybe they is a lot of work to be done, than us thinking making the site work on FF3 is all that is needed.
Just maybe, it does cost 3 million do all those things. If I was consulted to build all these maybes, I am dam sure, it will cost around 3 million.
Besides, the AIM of the IEC is to ensure that elections are Free AND Fair — and maybe finally, somebody in government realised that the ‘web’ is also a medium.
my 2,999,999,98¢
” a public wiki or blog that shames (in a constructive manner) the local websites that fail an acceptable level of support for W3C web standards (ie. they’re browser/platform/device incompatible), accessibility guidelines, and potentially also best practices in web design and development.
Alongside this list, links to local designers and developers who are accredited with providing the relevant services that meet this demand – and are willing to do it for a budget well within R3 million. ”
Dont you think by doing this you will just get into the same trouble you found yourself in with the blog post you recently put up about another company?
I don’t think this is up to us to exploit things, its up to use to make sure the sites we build are following the correct guidelines and rules that have been put in place.
Instead of pointing out issues rather find mature solutions to the problem.
Thanks for the feedback everyone – seems like there is some interest in building a public forum of sorts. Drop me a line if you’re keen to get involved and contribute in whatever way – the ball is already rolling.
@lebogang: You raise some very (albeit hypothetical) valid points, I wonder if they’d even considered any of that before getting the basics right first. Let’s hope not, but it would be awesome. It will be interesting to see what they produce over the next few months.
@Johan: Thanks for the feedback. In hindsight, “shames” wasn’t the right word to use. The forum shouldn’t involve pointing fingers or being exploitative – I realise that I made it sound like it could be. As I said about my previous evangelistic efforts, I doubt they worked because nobody likes to hear where they’re failing. But solutions begin by identifying the problems, which is why the IEC are now (we hope) moving forward. I’m open to more mature suggestions though.
It’s my intention that this be a community-driven project which local designers and developers can get behind and support, rather than feel threatened by. I read a great quote this week:
People on a design team must be as happy to be wrong as right. If their ideas hold up under strong (but fair) criticism, then great, they can proceed with confidence. If their ideas are rejected with good rationale, then they have learned something. A healthy team is made up of people who have the attitude that it is better to learn something new than to be right.
How about combining strengths to come up with a South African version along the lines of www[dot][dot]thebestdesigns[dot]com ?
It can mirror the same concept except that it would include a section on “websites that need help”. Surely that would be a little better than a website dedicated to detecting site imperfections as it would feature examples good web design (“Coda, your url will surely be on top of the kickbutt heap”). Each entry in the “need help” category would then have a blog-style list of points detailing the problems detected
Wouldn’t that dilute the shaming element considerably? Just a thought. Whaddya think?
I absolutely agree. I was just thinking today how South African websites are so far behind the standard. Dont xcify me just yet, I know that we have awesome websites locally but mostly within the private sector. Anything corporate or governmental is a joke. Big agencies getting jobs but making a mess of it? Not hiring the right people for the job? I dont know.
I like the blame/shame idea but think that it will only make matters worse and I dont think it’s a viable solution. I dont have any better ideas and have grappled with this problem before amongst peers. I’m afraid we’ll just have to wait for the next generation to grow up and take over…
@Sifiso and Paul: hey guys – thanks for commenting. I should mention that there are currently plans underway for a site that will service the local industry, not in a way that I originally proposed, but rather in a much more positive manner. Please e-mail me if you’re interested in learning more or would like to get involved. :)
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05 November 2008
lebogang nkoane08:02 am
I had argued for that a few years go (2006 i think) — I got burnt, got shot down — but I hope, your voice will reverberate further and lead to it existing.
Most importantly I think it create a platform where South/Africa(n) web designers/developers can collaborate — this me.me.2.0 crap is annoying me — more can be achieved in corroboration, me thinks.
I still think — we also need to add translate.org.za to it — the idea that because english is dominant so we gotta roll with it, in a country with 11 (at the least) languages does not sit well with me. I would like to see how the web can be used with other languages, [insert a long narrative for the argument to celebrate cultures, digitally].
Thats my 2¢.