The U.S. Web Design System (USWDS) provides a comprehensive set of standards which guide those who build the U.S. government’s many websites.
Now I know what to blame for every single US government website being so poorly put together they they barely function, if they function at all.
The Free Software Foundation Europe has an awesome initiative called Public Money Public Code where they try to convince lawmakers to use as much open source software as possible when using public funds. I really hope they succeed.
What about security? If it’s open source, anyone can poke around in the code and find vulnerabilities to exploit way easier.
And 100% of it is dog shit. I have seen custom products from Accenture, Deloitte, and E&Y, and they were passable prototypes at best.
Accenture doesn’t make shit. They bring in expensive ass consultants with 25 years of experience (on paper), then they sell something basically off the shelf. What’s left of the budget goes to a subcontractor, who now has to glue the already purchased pieces together with spit and gum, now on a very tight timeline before the funding runs out and your tiny company gets the blame
Haven’t worked directly with the others, but the Accenture story was the same everywhere
That’s the opposite of most UK government websites. I’ve always found them very well designed and easy to use. I think they’re well regarded by web designers
Not to derail a good point but there are at least a few government entities with brain cells. Check out digital.gov and cloud.gov, the latter of which has created a responsive, accessible platform for government websites.
every single US government website being so poorly put together
So, just like the rest of the internet? A technology, that popularly speaking, has only been around for 30-years?
And you expect an entity, as huge and diverse as the US government, on federal/state/local levels, to be on the same page?
I can safely make 2 predictions about you:
- You’re young, and that’s A-OK. My kids are GenZ, maybe Alpha? They’re my last, best hope for this world. But you haven’t had the benefit of watching all this evolve. I was writing BASIC on a VIC-20 as a child. 3K RAM!
- You’re not in tech. So again, you haven’t had the benefit of trying to make all this shit work. GenXers physically and programmatically built the world you live in, on top of the work of the Boomers. I’ve hung cable drops and coded, all messy.
This clusterfuck is both expected and natural. Or did your science teacher tell you evolution was orderly? Or perhaps intelligently designed?
And anyone else wanting to complain, I’ll remind you, this is how the government vs. the free market works.
Government works by rules that are not broken or bent. And this pisses some people off. Private enterprise works by what works and what doesn’t. It’s fast and fluid, and not designed to take “the people” in mind. And this pisses some people off.
Some tasks are appropriate for the government, some for the public sector. We’re still working this shit out. (website_under_construction.gif)
This thread is filled with people who don’t make a connection between shitty government websites and the roads that are filled with pot holes, several train derailments every day, a tax collection agency that doesn’t have enough staff to do audits on wealthy people, and schools that ban books that have rainbows in them but teach books by Prager U.
We could have better government websites - but not if we elect “starve the beast” politicians.
