Ministry of Education, Singapore (MOE) has got a slick new look - and proved that government websites and aesthetic usable designs, CAN go hand in hand. MoE's redesign now reminds me of how a government service should be: "Integrity. Service. Excellence." (Singapore Government's slogan). To know how bad (or good) a government website can be, lets compare it with the website of the Ministry of Information, Communication & the Arts (MICA)
Here is how they both look "above the fold":
Clearly, the use of subtle cues in the MOE's redesign draws the user to the central changing content about what is the latest news in MOE. Other subtle use of colors enable the user to find links when required.
MOE also uses microformats for the organizational structure which is quite neat. I think MOE website must be the first government website to validate XHTML 1.0 Strict and CSS. Did I mention it is eminently accessible without any spacer.gifs?
A look at the footers of MICA and MOE reveal that due thinking has gone into that as well in the MOE website:
However, there are a few things I would like in the new website:
- It is not clear which category or type the current page belongs to. Perhaps the menu item can be highlighted if it any of its child links are clicked.
- Breadcrumbs seem to be text only. It would be great if they are links too.
I think it is best that it is not incorporating the traditional system of a simple "poll" (found in all Singapore government websites) which is not enough to measure the quality of any website.
Overall, I think it is a great step forward for Singapore government websites. Of course, I think some small changes might be needed from the perspective of usability but that is just to make the already enhanced experience even better! Way to go MOE!
Comments
26 weeks 2 days ago, Balaji Dutt wrote:
Hey - just wanted to let you know that the screengrabs don't seem to show properly when I viewed this post in my feedreader.
Thanks for the screengrab btw - i still hadn't visited the site despite your suggestion to do so earlier :)
26 weeks 2 days ago, divya wrote:
Hey
I know it is because of relative links used in the URL for the images. Probably should shift to some other way of linking images. Not sure yet :)
Hehehe, I posted it for the likes of you :D
Nice post on the redesign btw!
26 weeks 1 day ago, Balaji Dutt wrote:
Ah I see - yes I was also extremely disappointed when I discovered that most RSS readers don't handle relative links at all, and the existing XML:Base entity is taken by the feed URL itself.
That's actually part of the next post on the redesign (which is a wrap-up with odds and ends). Thank you for the kind words on the posts - they've been rattling around in my head for a while, so they tend be a bit long-winded :)