UK gov sites ignore standards
UK government websites still ignore mandatory standards and basic guidelines meant to make information more easily available and accessible, says a new study.
"Key departments and agencies, including the Cabinet Office, Home Office, the e-Envoy and UK Online all failed to comply with metadata standards that make it easier to manage and find information on a website," states Business2www, quoted on silicon.com here.
Performance testing was carried out at the end of January on 61 central government sites to measure compliance with the government’s own electronic metadata standard (e-GMS), along with page download speed, accessibility and errors but, the report continues:
"Only 10 sites had any of the mandatory metadata, such as ‘creator’ and ‘title’, while 45 failed to comply at all – including most of the key central government departments, such as the Home Office and the DTI.
"Only seven were in full compliance with Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) guidelines – which aim to ensure that people with disabilities are not prevented from accessing information on the website – although this is an improvement on the previous study back in November. The e-Envoy, UK Online, the Disability Rights Commission and the Equal Opportunities Commission all scored top marks here.
"Overall, the study tested the top 250 pages of each site, and the rest of the results show that 35 agencies failed basic metadata tests for their home page, while the MoD had the fastest overall server response (0.068 seconds per page) compared to UK Online for Business, which had the slowest (9 seconds per page)."
Overall, the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister’s website for local authorities, www.localegov.gov.uk came top again, with the Child Support Agency second, UK Online fourth and the e-Envoy in 11th place.
