Do You Make These Malaysia Government Website Mistakes?

Disclaimer: Remarks or comments made by me (Danny Foo) from here onwards is my personal feelings and experiences using selected website mentioned or not mentioned in this article. The published content here has no intention to degrade the Malaysia government or related parties mentioned or not mentioned inside it. I; Danny Foo, can not and will not be held responsible or liable for the comments left posted by third-party authors if it were to happen.

Now, most Malaysia web designers know some of the worst websites in Malaysia are the government related ones. And if you visit them often enough (if you can stand it), they repeat the mistakes over and over again. Thus, it’s easy to know if you make any of these Malaysia government website type mistakes.

The list below is in no particular order arranged but some of the obvious things I’ve picked out from visiting and viewing some of the websites. And to not publish an over lengthy post, I’m going to summarize the descriptions for each point.

  • Browser incompatibility
    Okie, everyone may be using Windows XP or Vista. But not everyone are using Internet Explorer. The smarter (or geekier) ones prefer Mozilla Firefox, Opera, Safari and etc. So it should be a requirement to test on several browsers.
  • Unnecessary Flash media usage
    So what you’ve got a nice introduction on the front? All I want to know is who won the election or how can I check my MyKad application online. And, what?! you want to force me to sit and see your introduction by disallowing me any method to skip the movie.
  • Formal jargon written content
    Hmm, I think this phrase means I can’t renew my driving license if it has expired 30 days before I’m suppose to renew it. Seriously, copying the whole official formal legal document to start a business in Malaysia is good but it becomes an unnecessary hurdle to someone who just wants to know if he’ll need RM500,000 or RM1million to start a business in Malaysia.
  • Forced browser resize
    OMG! What happened?! The window suddenly resized itself. Do I have a virus? Is it something the Romans called a Trojan? WTF?! Who the hell is controlling my computer?! In less words, in down right unfriendly and so unnecessary to intrude the space I’ve allocated for my browser. Plus, I can’t imagine what would happen to someone running dual monitors. :P
  • Uninvited popup windows
    Ahh, here’s the information I want. Then at the click of the mouse, I get a fright of my life because the computer just did something I never intended it to do. I’m also wondering if popup windows are the cause for making users forget they have a button on their browsers to go back to the page they previously visited.
  • No direction information highway
    The last thing I remembered, I clicked on how to find out more about applying a Malaysia MyKad but now I’m reading about illegal immigrants without a Malaysia MyKad. Hmm…must have made a wrong turn somewhere. Oh wait, I think I clicked on the wrong menu button. Hmm…that’s not it either. Argh, which is the menu I’m suppose to use.
  • Bad color contrast
    *Squints eyes* I think it’s trying to say where I can find out more about e-government services. But after clicking, all I get is a whole bunch of logos and the names of the government departments.
  • Distracting animated elements
    I think since the news is happily moving from top to bottom and I can’t read it properly, I’ll just ignore it. But suddenly…oh, cool! It stopped when I rolled over on it. Starts scratching the thing like a DJ. Now, what was I looking for or reading earlier again?
  • Not web standards compatible
    I wonder why I can’t understand a single phrase from this website. I know I came to the right website address. However, every time I ask JAWS to read it its telling me, “header, header, header or image, image, image” and even the sentences don’t make sense to me.
  • Implement first…think later
    What do you mean it can’t be done like that now? But it did what it had before so how come I can’t just make it do a little more? Hmm…nevermind, we’ll just do it your way so we can get this over and done as the deadline is around the corner now.

Does any of it sound all too familiar to some of you? Fact is, a lot of us want to use the convenience of the Internet to access and manage our errands online if possible. However, obstacles which are often repeated every time the website goes through an upgrade doesn’t help improve the experience on the user level. Thus, we ignore its existence and continue to face the crowds and visit the related offices to accomplish our errands.

So what other common mistakes have you experienced and found in Malaysia websites?

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Posted by dannyfoo on May 1, 2008 | Filed Under Website Design, Website Development |

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    • Comments

    

    13 Responses to “Do You Make These Malaysia Government Website Mistakes?”

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    1. Response #1 by dani on May 22nd, 2008

      aha..I guess i found similar cases in Indonesia gov sites :)

      most problem of malaysia (and indonesia :) ) websites are:
      - web standards (no doctype, not safe in any browser)
      - semantic web (deprecated X/HTML tags-attributes-elements, CSS)
      - accessibility (flashy, javascript based, absence of alt attributes)

      I made a list of indonesian websites/weblogs which use some of web standards rules (valid X/HTML and/or CSS and/or ATRC; see my blog’s sidebar)…

    2. Response #2 by tulipspeaks on May 11th, 2008

      One will be the flash intro page. Second will be the difficulty i face to navigate – i just can’t find wht i need to find! Third, of course the compatibility issue – i use firefox.
      *sigh

      ammu.

    3. Response #3 by Danny Foo on May 7th, 2008

      Mike, those are very good points made especially the best viewed one. ROFL!

      As for the MSC website, despite development in XHTML / CSS I noticed there’s a major issue in the main navigation. They’re using images and there’s no text behind it. Therefore, if you turned off the stylesheet you’ll notice Home, Rakyat, Businesses and Government goes missing.

      And I’ve a feeling whoever is updating parts of the website isn’t familiar with web standards. I just found a webpage which content isn’t consistent with the rest of the website: http://tinyurl.com/4nsj33

      Oh well.. good effort still. :)

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