Do the Gardai know websites are public?

 – posted May 10th, 2006 by Brian Donohue     Comments (5)

The Gardai have been having a rough go of it lately, as they often seem to do in the press. This post has nothing to do with recent problems, it has to do with an old problem. By the look of it, a very old problem.

Have a quick gander at the Garda website.

It’s so bad that I almost feel sorry for it. Pointing out the faults in this site is like kicking a drunken old man who’s collapsed on the side of the road.

Where to start? Well the “home page” is a good place. It’s not quite the home page, because it asks you to identify yourself as a new or returning visitor. It took my wife about 10 seconds before she figured out where to click. And if you do click on the “New visitors” link, you have the distinct pleasure of reading a standard “Welcome” message. Then you can “enter” the home page. So it takes 2 clicks to enter the garda site and make it to the home page. Quite an achievement.

And then suppose you’ve gone online to find contact information for your local station. Once you’ve managed to get to the “homepage”, you’ll eventually find the reliable “Contact Us” link. What happens? If you’re using Firefox, absolutely nothing. The javascript link doesn’t work. So what about using Internet Explorer? Initially I thought nothing happened again. The page certainly didn’t change. My colleague had to point out to me the easy-to-miss change in the neighboring navigation box. Bottom line—it’s either impossible or difficult just to find out their contact information.

There’s really no point in continuing this public stoning, because it’s really quite self-evident. I think the blink reaction to websites is unusually accurate for this site: it looks like it was designed in 1995, and the more you read it, the more you think, yep, they haven’t touched it since then.

From what I’ve heard, lots of design houses have approached the guards and suggested they get a redesign. Their response: No thanks, we’re happy with what we’ve got. What do you say to that?

I’ll stop. It’s too easy a target. And I’m a fan of the guards. My scooter was recently stolen, and they were great (they found it and got it back to me). My father-in-law used to be a guard. But this site sure ain’t helping with their reputation.

I’ll end with the thoughts of a good friend on this site:

“It looks like the feckin’ guards did it themselves.”

Categories Site reviews

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