I'm glad to hear you are so passionate about web standards Darren.
I think it's fair to say that NZ is a little behind in it's implementation of standards design, but it is improving. Without going into too much detail there are a few areas that affect this:
1. Teaching institutions have appalling web design curriculum that know nothing of Web Standards. (I know I've taught them in the past, and tutored this year).
2. Web design is an easy entry market place, so everyones next door neighbor and their dog with a pirated copy of DWMX is let loose or one or two sites for a few quid.
3. Many established designers (will) have to relearn how to make web sites work, and that cuts into the bottom line.
But there is hope.....
The first NZ WSG meeting is happening this Thursday, and we have around 70 people who have expressed an interest in attending. This is a very encouraging result given Wellington's population of 350K.
If you are in Wellington, then I hope to see you there. If you are somewhere else then perhaps you can start your own WSG meetings.
So let's talk about the egovt web guidelines (egovt compliance) and a bit about the sites you cite.
The web guidelines are pretty good IMO. There are some things that can be improved but overall it's a pretty thorough document that covers most aspects of creating standards based web sites for govt departments and agencies.
The issue with it, as you allude to, is that it only extends to govt departments and their agencies. So SOE's (State Owned Enterprise), private businesses and everyone else do not need to bother with egovt compliance.
Another issue with the web guidelines is they lack teeth. Adherence to the guidelines is strongly encouraged, but ultimately optional. New sites must comply, and old sites should redesign, unless the cost is prohibitive, or there is some really, really good reason not to comply.
There is a memo circulating that encourages govt depts to make their sites egovt compliant by the start of 2006 so I expect there will be a rush on govt redesigns next year.
So lets talk about the sites you cite:
[1] TVNZ. Just horrible, and unfortunately it's a SOE which doesn't have to comply with standards. It's probably designed (and I use that term loosely) by the marketing department and the IT dept. A classic example of how bad design can damage your brand.
[2] NZ HERALD. Agree. Probably has the front end hardcoded into the CMS.
[4] The radionz site is a good one. A really good way to find egovt compliant sites in NZ is to google "accessibility accessible site:.nz" which should return sites which have accessibility statements and have been designed in the last couple of years.
The business case for both providers and customers of implementing standards design is so strong that any other option seems foolhardy by comparison. Sometimes I explain web standards to customers, but often I just implement them.
On 2004-12-07 4:19 PM, Darren Wood wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------------------- [1] http://tvnz.co.nz - Inaccessible, slow, Flash, non-standards, table based.
[2] http://nzherald.co.nz - I'm speechless. This is trash and the reason i wrote this email.
[3] http://www.e-government.govt.nz/web-guidelines/ - Brilliant!
[4] http://www.radionz.co.nz/ - Probably one of the first to go standards based.
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