Oasis - delivering real public service

— Published March 1st, 2004  |  by Colm McBarron

By this stage we're very familar with many of the eGovernment initiatives that have been undertaken in Ireland over the last few years - with somewhat patchy results.

We're still waiting for the public services broker, and preliminary results from our own forthcoming benchmarking survey suggests there's a long way to go in delivering real service across the board.

But in this context, the success of the Oasis public information site [http://oasis.gov.ie] is often overlooked.

Based partly around key life events, the site aims to 'provide information on the social and civil rights of everyone in Ireland', drawing together and clarifying public services information from a range of organisations.

The first thing an information site has to do is allow visitors to access the information in the way that best suits them. So there's a search, a category listing, an FAQ list, a life events listing, a title index and a subject index.

All of these approaches can lead you into the information, which is written in clear English (and Irish) in a very web-friendly fashion (some material is available in other languages as well). Headings and subheadings are meaningful, paragraphs and sentences are short, links are well-labelled and there is good use of bulleted lists.

The metadata and tools which surround the body of the content are also useful - related links, a printable version and a rating option are augmented by clear options on what to do if this page has not answered your question.

From a universal design perspective, the site also scores well - you can choose your own text size, background and foreground colours, and most pages conform to WAI 3A standards.

Especially given the varied quality of the material on which the Oasis pages are based, the clear structure and well-produced content are a credit to the organisation, and the site is an excellent example of a public service presence that actually offers the public a service.

Related Links:

• Oasis public information site - [http://oasis.gov.ie/]