Good points, Andy. In addition, the US Government apparently didn't realize that some folks might actually want to look at their new images (despite, or because of, how confusing they might be) -- when my wife (a trained nutrionist) tried to visit the new websites, she failed seven times because of cicuit overload or inadequate server capacity.
Oh, well, we all eat Mediterranean in this household anyway, but still... it would be kind of nice if the Government had a vague idea what it was doing steve wagenseil expert/consultant OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions & Human Rights Warsaw, Poland http://www.osce.org/odihr --- Andy Carvin <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Hi everyone, > > I've written a blog entry today that might be of > interest. It's called > "The Mystery of the Food Pyramid: An E-Government > Fiasco?", and it > discusses the new USDA Food Pyramid released this > week. The pyramid is > actually one of a dozen pyramids now available, > based on a person's age, > gender and level of physical activity. Unfortunately > you need to go > online to find out which diet you should follow, and > this raises some > serious questions regarding the digital divide, > e-government for all, > and Web accessibility for the disabled. Here are > some quotes from my blog: > > ... I truly, truly hope the USDA does more than just > this website to > educate the public, though. As I've written before > in my work on > e-government for all, it's poor policymaking to > assume that all > constituents will have equal access to the Internet > or the skills to use > it. Therefore, you need to make sure you use > alternative offline > channels -- TV, radio, print, in-person meetings, > etc -- to make > government services and information available to the > people who need it. > > Unfortunately, when you look at various demographic > groups, there's a > higher likelihood of lower-income, less-educated > people to eat a poor > diet. Just the audience you'd want to reach in a > public health campaign, > right? Paradoxically, they're also the ones least > likely to have > Internet access or Internet skills. This makes it > even more important to > invest in large-scale offline campaigns to get > health-related > information directly into their hands. > > Meanwhile, don't get me started on Web accessibilty > for the disabled. I > ran an accessibility test on the homepage and the > "Inside the Pyramid" > page, which describes the pyramid in greater detail. > Both failed even > the most basic accessibility standards; in the case > of the homepage, it > was because it didn't have alternative text > descriptions for all the > images on the homepage.... > > To read more, please visit here: > > http://www.andycarvin.com > > A permanent link for the article is here: > http://www.andycarvin.com/archives/2005/04/the_mystery_of.html > > thanks, > ac > > -- > ----------------------------------- > Andy Carvin > Program Director > EDC Center for Media & Community > acarvin @ edc . org > http://www.digitaldivide.net > http://www.tsunami-info.org > Blog: http://www.andycarvin.com > ----------------------------------- > _______________________________________________ > DIGITALDIVIDE mailing list > [email protected] > http://mailman.edc.org/mailman/listinfo/digitaldivide > To unsubscribe, send a message to > [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word > UNSUBSCRIBE in the body of the message. > _______________________________________________ DIGITALDIVIDE mailing list [email protected] http://mailman.edc.org/mailman/listinfo/digitaldivide To unsubscribe, send a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word UNSUBSCRIBE in the body of the message.
