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Such a move promises to offer benefits for all concerned. Instead of waiting for hours in a phone queue, battling those nasty interactive voice menus or sitting around in some civil servant's waiting room, you'll get immediate access to the people and services you need.

Well that's the theory.

From the government's perspective it also means that, as they've already done with the IRD, many government departments can be moved behind shuttered and barred doors -- far from the public's gaze or scrutiny.

In a properly structured system, moving services and communications to the Net should save a lot of time and money for all parties.

But I suspect all is not going as well as it could.

For example... in order to be of use to all Net users, the government's (and government departments) should have browser-agnostic websites that don't require broadband speeds to be useful.

Is that really the case right now?

Because I hate pop-ups and the endless stream of security warnings associated with Javascript and Active-X controls, I always browse with those features disabled on my browser.

In fact, looking at Microsoft's track record, I generally avoid using Internet Explorer at all.

Likewise, living in an area that Telecom considers unworthy of broadband, I tend to browse with my graphics disabled. This makes a *huge* difference to the loading time for most websites these days.

Unfortunately, I'm finding that an increasing number of government websites simply won't work unless I've got all the options enabled and/or I'm using Internet Explorer.

I suspect the government's answer would be "but almost everyone uses IE in the default configuration" so the problem is my fault and I should simply fall into line.

Okay, but what about the visually impaired?

Those fancy Java applets, sliding/drop-down menus all look wonderful to you and I -- but they're nigh impossible to navigate if you rely on a text to speech conversion unit because you're blind.

Surely *every* government website should be designed to allow an acceptable minimum level of functionality at a non-scripted text-only level?

Okay, let the web designers in government employ show off and dazzle us with their in-depth understanding of DHTLM and the latest "gee whiz" extension to Internet Explorer -- but also remember that it's good practice (and it should be high on the list of government mandates) that all .govt.nz websites have a "text only" link in the top-left corner that leads to a version of the site that takes into consideration that not everyone has, or is able to use all this fancy head-spinning technology.

The last thing we want is being denied access to services we're paying for through our tax dollars simply because we're physically or technologically "challenged".

Bearing all this in mind -- what do you think are the best and worst examples of .govt.nz websites?

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