Government Online

Veterans Affairs' weak Vimy Ridge page

2007-04-09T12:49:00.000Z

In the National Post today, April 9th, 2007, there is a story "59% in Canada can't name Vimy Ridge".

"As Canada marks the 90th anniversary of the Battle of Vimy Ridge, a new survey suggests 59% of Canadians do not even know the name of the iconic First World War clash..."

You might think that the Canadian Government website would be designed to help to inform Canadians about Vimy Ridge, but you would be bitterly disappointed at the few crumbs you will find there.

There are just 386 words in the VAC (Veterans Affairs Canada) Remembers The Battle of Vimy Ridge.

That's the total effort that our Veterans Affairs department thinks the Battle of Vimy Ridge is worth. Not a single photograph. No map to show us just where Vimy Ridge is located. Just a miserly 386 words, without even a single link to more informative pages.

With this miserable effort by the Veterans Affairs department, why is it newsworthy enough to spend newspaper space to tell us that "59% in Canada can't name Vimy Ridge"? Seems to me it's more newsworthy to report that 41% do recognize the name Vimy Ridge.

Wikipedia does a much better job than Veterans Affairs, with articles on Canadian National Vimy Memorial and Battle of Vimy Ridge.

The National Post article continued: "Overall, Canadians also have a poor knowledge of First World War heroes – with only 34% correctly identifying both Sir Arthur Currie, commander of the Canadian Corps, and Air Marshall William 'Billy' Bishop, a Canadian flying ace."

The WWW is widely recognized as an important information source for many people, and for most people under thirty, so let's see what is available online, with special attention given to the Canadian Government website's contribution to informing people about Canada's "First World War heroes".

If you google on Sir Arthur Currie, the first hit is on Wikipedia's Arthur Currie. This is a good general-purpose article, far superior to anything offered by the Government of Canada (that is, to anything findable by Google and thus findable by the public at large).

Number four is the Canadian Encyclopedia Online's Sir Arthur William Currie. This is a brief document, just four short paragraphs, hardly the treatment one would expect for a "First World War hero".

The Canadian Government comes in at number eight with Sir Arthur Currie as Canadian Leader. This is the only appearance of the Canadian Government's website in the top twenty as reported by Google today. Regrettably, this treatment does little to further the notion of Arthur Currie as a "First World War hero". The first words of the first sentence are: "There is a great deal wrong with Arthur Currie as an exemplary military leader..." Unfortunately, this is not an html document, but is pdf (so there are no links suggesting additional information resources). And it is a forbidding academic document, with a fat bibliography but not a single photograph, thus not very attractive for an everyday casual reader.

After the Wikipedia article (above), I'd recommend number fourteen, CTV's Remembering Arthur Currie: Canadian war hero. IMO, this is much better than the Canadian Government's online information about Currie. CTV's article is outstanding (especially by comparison to the government's offering) in the links it provides to additional information about Currie and Vimy Ridge.

Veterans Affairs should recommend that its website designers take a careful look at these excellent examples, by CTV and Wikipedia, of how to use links to advantage. The government's designers have so far not made good use of any of the three most important characteristics of the WWW – the linking ability, the search ability and the effectively unlimited space at nearly-zero cost (making feasible the extensive use of images, such as photographs and maps).

If you google on Air Marshall William Billy Bishop, the number three hit reported is Wikipedia's Billy Bishop. A good effort, with lots of links to additional information.

Number twelve is the Department of National Defence's War, Peace and Security page, Bishop: Air Marshal William Billy Bishop (with two glaring errors in the large-type headline, a spelling mistake in his name and an html coding mistake - see screenshot below). This is not a descriptive article. It is just a dry bibliography, a list of "Books, Research Papers and Reports", none of them available online. Next to useless, if you want online information to educate people about Canada's "First World War heroes". This is the only appearance of the government's website gc.ca in the top twenty, as reported by Google today.

Mangled headline, war hero Billy Bishop webpage with errors by DND National Defence. For a full-size view, click on the image.

After reviewing the online information provided by Veterans Affairs, and the Canadian Government in general, as revealed by Google searches (the best publicly-available way to find information on the WWW), I'm not at all surprised that many Canadians are uninformed about Canada's war history. Are you surprised?

There's one clear conclusion: you'll do better with Wikipedia than with the Government of Canada, for this kind of information.

Dumbest Design Decision

2007-03-04T10:41:00.000Z

There is plenty of competition for the Dumbest Government Website Design Decision, but Library and Archives Canada is a strong contender for the short list. The following appears in the Dictionary of Canadian Biography Online website:

To display unique characters the Dictionary of Canadian Biography Online uses a custom font. For the most accurate representation of the text, you must download and install the custom "NewKwah" font on your computer.

That decision, to use a very unusual special font to display ordinary text information in a government website, reveals a combination of arrogance and stupidity that is hard to match.

Library and Archives Canada offers a set of five instructions.
The first For Windows users:
1. Right click here to download NewKwah_.TTF and save it to your computer. Remember where you have saved the file - you will need it later.

This instruction does not work. When I right click on this link I get a pop-up menu that offers several options, including
Bookmark this link...
Save link as...
Copy link location...
Nowhere is there any mention of downloading a font.

I'm betting that this stupid design decision was made by someone who spent his/her formative years in the culture of printed books. He/she came late to electronic publishing, and has only the dimmest grasp of how the Internet works for the ordinary viewer.

At the bottom of this webpage, we see "last updated" in October 2003, forty months ago. The Internet changes as much in a month as the rest of the world changes in a year. Forty months on the Internet has seen change comparable to two generations in the real world. In 2003, someone decided to use a very special font, and wrote instructions on how to obtain and install this font, without ever considering whether that font or those instructions would work in 2007 (or 2008, or 2009...). It never occurred to that decision-maker that things change, and what may be desirable and workable today may not be desirable or workable in a new generation of browsers and operating systems.

In the world of printed books, you make a decision about a font, then set the type. After you run the book through the press, that's all folks. It does not matter what may happen after the printer has completed his work. Fonts may change, paper may change, ink may change, language may change, but none of that matters for a printed book. That's why I believe the Dictionary of Canadian Biography Online website was designed by someone who understands printed books but not the Internet. The book will work in fifty years just as well as it did the day it went through the press, but an electronic document may not work properly fifty months after it was uploaded, because it has to be processed by software and hardware that has moved forward at the blinding rate we all are familiar with (all except the website designers at Library and Archives Canada).

There are no special characters used in the Dictionary of Canadian Biography Online that cannot easily and conveniently be represented in ordinary HTML with entities that are understood by all mainstream browsers. These work well with any ordinary font usually found in an ordinary personal computer, without hassling the viewer to undertake difficult (for the average person) procedures that may or may not work for the variety of browsers and operating systems and hardware that are in everyday use by citizens.

The following are examples of assorted special characters that can easily and conveniently be represented in HTML by entities. These are displayed here without the need for any special font, and without hassling the viewer. Any entity can be placed anywhere within ordinary text, as required. No fuss, no muss, no bother, no hassle. À Á Â Ã Ä Å Æ Ç È É Ê Ë Ì Í Î Ï Ð Ñ Ò Ó Ô Õ Ö × Ø Ù Ú Û Ü Ý Þ ß à á â ã ä å æ ç è é ê ë ì í î ï ð ñ ò ó ô õ ö ÷ ø ù ú û ü ý þ ÿ Œ œ Š š Ÿ ° ± ² ³ These special characters work properly with whatever font you may happen to have available in your computer. If I can do it, the Dictionary of Canadian Biography Online should be able to do it.

Do you see any special characters in the Dictionary of Canadian Biography Online (assuming you are able to use that special font they admire so much) that are not available in the examples above?

By the way, the above examples are only samples; the complete set of entities includes many more special characters: Α Β Γ Δ Ε Ζ Η Θ Ι Κ Λ Μ Ν Ξ Ο Π Ρ Σ Τ Υ Φ Χ Ψ Ω Ϊ Ϋ ά έ ή ί ΰ α β γ δ ε ζ η θ ι κ λ μ ν ξ ο π ρ ς σ τ υ φ χ ψ ω ϊ ϋ ό ύ ώ ϑ ϒ ϖ ℘ ℵ ℑ ℜ ∂ ∇ ≠ and dozens more.

I say that Library and Archives Canada makes the short list for Dumbest Government Website Design Decision.

Do you disagree?

Parliament's Website - Blinkered Design

2007-01-28T13:12:00.000Z

In the Parliament of Canada webpage Chamber Business there is a prominent example of bad design.

Parliament of Canada, Chamber Business webpage. For a full-size view, click on the image, or look at the original Chamber Business webpage.

Look at that navigation information in the left-side column:

       About Chamber Business
       39th Parliament, 1st Session
       38th Parliament, 1st Session
       37th Parliament, 3rd Session
       37th Parliament, 2nd Session
       37th Parliament, 1st Session
       36th Parliament, 2nd Session
       36th Parliament, 1st Session
       35th Parliament, 2nd Session
       35th Parliament, 1st Session

This is a textbook example of the blinkered approach to site design that we see far too often in the government's websites. Does any citizen, who is looking for government information — say a Hansard report of a speech by his/her MP — think of the date of that speech in terms of 36th or 37th or 38th Parliament, 1st or 2nd or 3rd Session? Of course not. We the people think of such things in terms of calendar dates.

Sure, these official Chamber Business documents are organized by Parliament and Session numbers, and the site navigation has to be organized in the same way, but the navigation should match these Parliament and Session numbers with calendar dates. These dates should appear in the navigation column — or at the very least as cursor hover popups (although hover popups are less satisfactory because different browsers react to them in different ways).

Below is an example of the much more useful (from a citizen's viewpoint) navigation offered by the Ontario Hansard Index

Ontario Hansard Index, showing Parliament and Session numbers with calendar dates. For a full-size view, click on the image, or look at the original Ontario Hansard Index.

Parks Canada Website - A Citizen's View (9)

2007-01-26T20:21:00.000Z

Parks Canada makes no provision for anyone to report a mistake in its website. It almost appears that Parks Canada's management is unwilling to face the possibility that a mistake could possibly appear here. No doubt they do take great care to get it right, but there's no way such a large and diverse resouce could be wholly free from errors. There should be official recognition of the possibility of an occasional error, with the provision of a way for that error to be reported, followed by appropriate checking and then correction. Some errors, such as a wrong date or wrong geographic location for an historic event, or even a spelling mistake, could be quite simple to verify and correct.

I know of two glaring historical errors that appear in the Parks Canada website. They've been there for years with no prospect of getting them straightened out.

Here's an excellent role model, that Parks Canada would do well to emulate — The Toronto Star newspaper gives prominence to The Bureau of Accuracy (see screenshot below), with a clear invitation to tell them about a mistake: "If you have information about an error that calls for a published correction, please" send an e-mail, or phone or fax, or mail a letter. An archive of recent corrections is available.

Toronto Star corrections webpage. For a full-size view, click on the image.

Here's another excellent role model, that Parks Canada would do well to emulate — CBC News Report a Typo or Inaccuracy

CBC News corrections webpage. For a full-size view, click on the image.

The only thing missing here is an archive of recent corrections, similar to that provided by the Toronto Star (above).

Treasury Board Website, Weak Design

2007-01-25T15:53:00.000Z

In the Treasury Board of Canada webpage "DPR 2005-2006, Parks Canada Agency" Section 2: Performance by Program Activities, when you scroll down, there is a small (450 × 372px) map "Figure 2: Natural Regions and National Parks of Canada, Click image to enlarge."

This "enlarged" 886 × 734px image is far too tiny – most of the text, including what seems to be a list of the names of the 39 parks, is illegible because it is too small. In this full-size screenshot of the lower right corner of this "enlarged" image, can you read "Prince Edward Island"?

Full-size "enlarged" view

Here's another tiny "enlarged" image — in the same Treasury Board of Canada webpage "DPR 2005-2006, Parks Canada Agency" Section 2: Performance by Program Activities, when you scroll down, there is a small (450 × 357px) map "Figure 11: The 154 National Historic Sites of Canada Administered by Parks Canada, Click image to enlarge."

This "enlarged" 850 × 676px image is far too tiny – most of the text is illegible because it is too small. In this full-size screenshot of the lower right corner of this "enlarged" Parks Canada map, how much of the text can you read?

Full-size "enlarged" view

One of the basic principles in the design of any website, especially one prepared with taxpayers' money, must be that any map displayed online has to be available in a version sufficiently large that all of the place names on the map are legible. That's obvious, isn't it?

In the same page, this statement appears:
"Level of Awareness and Access to Best Practice Information: In 2004-2005, the Agency commissioned a survey of other owners of national historic sites (see Background Performance Information www.pc.gc.ca library for a more complete description of the survey and how to obtain a copy of the results)."
Yeah, right. Here's a challenge: Go to this www.pc.gc.ca library — please note that I've made it much easier for you to find this "library" by providing a link, something the well-paid government website designers should have done but didn't — and see how long it takes you to find this "Background Performance Information." On second thought, forget how long, and just try to find it. Hint: a search, using these three keywords Background Performance Information, returns this helpful message: "No documents matching your query were found." The designers of this webpage clearly have not bothered to enquire if this works for someone not on the inside.

In that same page, the geniuses in charge of this website design tell the citizen, 23 times in 23 separate paragraphs, to go to www.pc.gc.ca for more information. Not once have they provided a link directly to the recommended information, to help the citizen. I've not been able to find any of this supposed additional information. Is anyone minding the store at the Treasury Board website design office?

Alberta's Online Encyclopedia

2007-01-14T10:51:00.000Z

Have you looked at Alberta's Online Encyclopedia? "Did you know that Alberta has more purpose-built content on the World Wide Web than any other Canadian province? Alberta is also the first province to have an online encyclopedia..."

Northwest Territories Website - Unacceptable

2007-01-14T09:14:00.000Z

In the website operated by the Environment and Natural Resources Department of the Government of the Northwest Territories, the Home Page prominently displays this:
"Site best viewed at 800 X 600 resolution."

This is an unacceptable approach to the design of a government website. Fewer than one in five computers now have screens as small as 800×600px (source).

             Screen sizes in use
          Larger  1024x768  800x600
2006 Jul   19%       58%      17%
2006 Jan   17%       57%      20%
2005 Jul   14%       55%      25%
2005 Jan   12%       53%      30%              
2004 Jul   10%       50%      35%
2004 Jan   10%       47%      37%

What do they expect? Do they really think that each citizen who views this site should go out any buy a monitor (in the now nearly-unobtainable) small size 800 by 600 pixels?

It is the responsibility of the website designer to see that any website operated by any government is designed to work properly with
(1) at least four or five of the most-used browsers, and
(2) several screen sizes, as are currently in use by citizens.
It is the responsibility of the department management to see that the site designer is meeting this requirement.

Parks Canada Website - A Citizen's View (8)

2007-01-14T08:53:00.000Z

In the Parks Canada webpage The Forks National Historic Site of Canada - Visitor Information, there is a small (210×269px) photograph of the "The Path of Time Sculpture".

A much larger view of this magnificent sculpture should be available online. After all, this online information is available to many thousands of people who will never have the opportunity to visit The Forks National Historic Site in person.

There are numerous other small photographs in the associated pages of this website, that should be made available in a larger size.

ParksCanada For Sale

2007-01-13T13:34:00.000Z

Here's an interesting item:
This domain ParksCanada.com is Available For Sale...

Parks Canada Website - A Citizen's View (7)

2007-01-13T11:14:00.000Z

In the Parks Canada website, the Commemorative Plaques - Plaque Models webpage of the Historic Sites and Monuments Board fails validation:
Parks Canada HSMB
Commemorative Plaque Models
Failed Validation, illegal characters

Failed validation report: HSMB page: Commemorative Plaque Models. For a full-size view, click on the image.

This faulty Parks Canada website is contrary to the Government's standards for website design.

Parks Canada Website - A Citizen's View (6)

2007-01-11T12:15:00.000Z

In the Parks Canada National Photo Gallery webpage, I did a search on "monument" in the "Keyword" space, leaving the other three search spaces blank.

It returned a page showing thumbnails of photographs of monuments in Canada, with this note: "For a larger view...click on photo".

To see what the "larger view" looks like, I clicked on a thumbnail, "Rogers Pass Monument commemorating opening of Trans-Canada Highway, 1977".

The thumbnail is 150 pixels wide. The "larger view" option brings up a photo only 300 pixels wide. Just twice the size! This is so 1990s.

Like most people using the Internet these days, my screen is 1024 pixels wide. The "larger view" should be much larger than 300 pixels wide – that is if Parks Canada wants to show off its photo collection to advantage, making best use of the characteristics of the Internet as it exists today.

The "larger view" should be at least 700 pixels wide, and 900 would be better.

Parks Canada should take a close look at Wikipedia's excellent way of providing larger views of small thumbnail photos embedded in its articles. For example, see Wikipedia's Field Hill. This article includes a photograph (350×236 pixels) of the "View from the cab of a Canadian Pacific Railway locomotive at the 'Cathedral' signpost as it ascends the Big Hill." Immediately below this image, to the right of the caption, there is a standard graphic indicating that a larger image is available. Clicking on this graphic brings up a larger view (800×540px) of the same photograph. Immediately below this image, we see a link "Download high-resolution version...". Clicking on this link brings up an excellent full-screen view 1024×691px). All this is done using a single full-size image stored on the Wikipedia server, with the reduced sizes generated on demand, immediately before downloading.

Another example can be seen in Wikipedia's Cape Breton and Central Nova Scotia Railway. This article includes a photograph (300×127 pixels) "CB&CNSR freight train northbound on the Abercrombie spur." Immediately below this image, to the right of the caption, there is a standard graphic indicating that a larger image is available. Clicking on this graphic brings up a larger view (800×338px) of the same photograph. Immediately below this image, we see a link "Download high-resolution version...". Clicking on this link brings up an excellent full-screen view 1207×510px). Again, all this is done using a single full-size image stored on the Wikipedia server, with the reduced sizes generated on demand before downloading.

A third example can be seen in Wikipedia's List of national historic sites of Canada. This article includes a photograph (180×114 pixels) of the "Hartland Covered Bridge National Historic Site." Immediately below this image, to the right of the caption, there is a standard graphic indicating that a larger image is available. Clicking on this graphic brings up a larger view (800×508px) of the same photograph. Immediately below this image, we see a link "Download high-resolution version...". Clicking on this link brings up an excellent full-screen view 2048×1300px). Again, all this is done using a single full-size image stored on the Wikipedia server, with the reduced sizes generated on demand.

A fourth example (many hundreds are available) can be seen in Wikipedia's Athabasca Oil Sands. This article includes a photograph (300×127 pixels) of the "Minesite at Syncrude's Mildred Lake plant." Immediately below this image, to the right of the caption, there is a standard graphic indicating that a larger image is available. Clicking on this graphic brings up a larger view (800×600px) of the same photograph. Immediately below this image, we see a link "Download high-resolution version...". Clicking on this link brings up an excellent full-screen view 1024×768px). Again, all this is done using a single full-size image stored on the Wikipedia server, with the reduced sizes generated on demand.

(Later): A friend commented by e-mail: "That's all very well, but those large full-screen images have very large file sizes, and take too long to download" (he has a 56k dial-up connection).

My reply: Some of the full-screen images do have large file sizes, but if good photographic software is used to compress them properly, they can be kept within acceptable file sizes while maintaining high-quality on-screen images. For example, Parks Canada's larger view (above) of the Rogers Pass photo, a tiny 300×200px, occupies 74 kilobytes, compared to only 108 kilobytes for the full-size 1207×510px CB&CNSR photo (above). The full-size Mildred Lake photo (above) 1024×768px occupies only 135 kilobytes.

Addendum: January 17, 2007 16:35 UTC
Here's an example of a high-quality online rendition of an historic document, a superb archived copy 2417×3000px of an old map of Hillcrest Mines, Alberta.

Parks Canada Website - A Citizen's View (5)

2007-01-11T11:29:00.000Z

In the Parks Canada National Photo Gallery webpage, I did a search on "Ontario". Just "Ontario" in the "Province or Territory" space, leaving the other three blank.

It returned a page showing thumbnails of photographs. At the bottom this appeared: "Page 1 of 611". The only way provided, to look through the entire collection, was a "Next page" link. That is, if I want to see the thumbnails displayed on, say, page 567, I have to step through the whole collection, one page at a time, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, etc. until I get to page 567. This is, uh, an inadequate way to design a website.

It turned out that it is easy to get to page 567 or page 365 or page 99 or any other page in this collection, if you are willing and able to decipher and then edit the URL, but surely Parks Canada does not expect its viewers to do this. Surely they can provide a better way.

Parks Canada Website - A Citizen's View (4)

2007-01-11T10:46:00.000Z

In the Parks Canada webpage History of the Historic Sites and Monuments Board of Canada, the following text appears:

"In 1951, the Royal Commission on National Development in the Arts, Letters and Sciences noted the imbalance of the HSMBC's commemorative program and recommended that more attention be paid to preservation. In 1953, the Historic Sites and Monuments Act established the HSMBC by statute, enlarged it, and gave it increased resources. An amendment in 1955 specified the power to recommend national designation for buildings by reason of their age or architectural design. Thereafter, it studied more Canadian built heritage, expanding the concept to include streetscapes, districts, gardens, and urban and rural landscapes. With the introduction of the Heritage Railway Stations Act in 1989, the HSMBC was given the additional duty of evaluating Heritage Railway Stations. The Board continues to deal with the great number of requests for recognition of places, people and events in the various aspects of Canadian political, economic and social history..."

From a citizen's point of view, it would be a big help if this text included links (indicated by boldface type above) pointing toward additional information, such as, in the case of Acts, the Act text, etc.

Parks Canada Website - A Citizen's View (3)

2007-01-10T13:13:00.000Z

In the Parks Canada webpage List of Designated Heritage Railway Stations, there is a small photograph of the "Canadian Pacific Railway Station, Medicine Hat, Alberta, Heritage Railway Station, 1991".

Two comments:

(1) This image is awfully dark. It should be modified with suitable photographic software to show a better (brighter) picture.

(2) There should be an option for the viewer to choose to see a larger image – large enough to use the available screen area to advantage. At this time, most Internet users have a screen 1024 by 768 pixels. A suitable image size for showing this Heritage Railway Station to advantage would be at least 700 pixels wide, and 900 would be better.

Parks Canada Website - A Citizen's View (2)

2007-01-10T12:57:00.000Z

In the Parks Canada webpage Grave Sites of Canadian Prime Ministers, we read:

"The objective of the National Program for the Grave Sites of Canadian Prime Ministers is to ensure that the grave sites are conserved and recognized in a respectful and dignified manner. Another important objective of the program is to provide Canadians with information on the lives and accomplishments of each former prime minister, as well as the locations of their final resting places..."

"The following elements are part of the program: ...the establishment of a website with links to National Historic Sites of Canada that commemorate prime ministers, as well as to other prime ministers' web sites..."

In that text, the word "website" should be a link that takes the viewer to the website. Without this link, the "website" is impossible to find.

Parks Canada Website - A Citizen's View (1)

2007-01-10T12:42:00.000Z

In the Parks Canada webpage Marconi National Historic Site of Canada, near the bottom, the following links appear:

"Related Locations"
*Alexander Graham Bell National Historic Site of Canada
*Grassy Island Fort National Historic Site of Canada
*Cape Breton Highlands National Park of Canada
*Halifax Citadel National Historic Site of Canada

Clicking on any of these links produces an error message:
HTTP Error 404 - Not Found.

Parks Canada's website makes no provision for reporting a broken link.

Parks Canada Ten Years Behind

2007-01-04T21:20:00.000Z

Parks Canada's website is ten years behind. They think that Netscape is the dominant browser, and they've never heard of Internet Explorer or Firefox or Safari or Opera. "System Requirements... Browser: Netscape 7.2 or newer release." That's the Parks Canada website today. They are blissfully unaware of the fact that, in 2007, fewer than one in twenty viewers of the WWW use the Netscape browser.

Screenshot of Parks Canada website. "System Requirements... Browser: Netscape 7.2 or newer release." For a full-size view, click on the image.

Source: http://www.pc.gc.ca/apps/dci/source/install_ns.asp?langId=0&ref=http://www.pc.gc.ca/apps/dci/source/3d_e.asp?sitename=mar&theme=te&btn_state=%20Texte%20seulement
Note that Parks Canada's screenshot examples are so small that they are illegible.

New Brunswick Election Websites

2006-08-18T20:40:00.000Z

At 4:00 pm today, the New Brunswick government was officially ended, with the election of a new government set for September 18th. The party websites discussed below have been designed and are operated by the three political parties that are fighting tooth and nail to become the next government of New Brunswick. One of them will form the next government and thus will, in a few weeks, be in charge of the design and operation of all New Brunswick government websites. Their campaign sites can be viewed as a part of their resume as they compete for voter approval.

New Brunswick Progressive Conservative Party
Election Campaign Home Page
Failed Validation: 24 errors

Failed validation report: New Brunswick Progressive Conservative Party 2006 election website home page. For a full-size view, click on the image.

New Brunswick Liberal Party
Election Campaign Home Page
Failed Validation: 59 errors

Failed validation report: New Brunswick Liberal Party 2006 election website home page. For a full-size view, click on the image.

New Brunswick New Democratic Party
Election Campaign Home Page
Failed Validation: 19 errors

Failed validation report: New Brunswick New Democratic Party 2006 election website home page. For a full-size view, click on the image.

None of these three parties has seen fit to include a statement of their policies about website accessibility and/or interoperability. This omission provides, by itself, a revealing comment on the awareness, or lack thereof, of these party leaders with respect to the importance of such considerations in communicating with the public in 2006. If these standards are thought to be unimportant when they are fighting for public approval, is unlikely they will be given greater significance after the election is decided.

These validation tests were performed by using the W3C Validation Service.

Prime Minister's Website

2006-06-09T10:30:00.000Z

The Prime Minister's website routinely ignores the Government's standards for website design.

Example:
Prime Minister's website
24 Sussex Drive
Failed Validation: 141 errors

Failed validation report: 24 Sussex Drive page. For a full-size view, click on the image.

Canadian Heritage Dept. Website

2006-05-31T20:26:00.000Z

The website operated by the Department of Canadian Heritage routinely ignores the Government's standards for website design.

Example:
Canadian Heritage Department
Heritage Day
Failed Validation: 59 errors

Failed validation report: Heritage Day page. For a full-size view, click on the image.

More:
Canadian Heritage Department
Home Page
Failed Validation: 17 errors

Canadian Heritage Department
Canada Day
Failed Validation: 6 errors

Canadian Heritage Department
Celebrate Canada Committees
Failed Validation: 19 errors

Canadian Heritage Department
Canada Day Poster Challenge
Failed Validation: 8 errors

Canadian Heritage Department
Minister of Canadian Heritage and Status of Women
Successful Validation

Canadian Heritage Department
Deputy Minister of Canadian Heritage
Failed Validation: 13 errors

Nova Scotia Election Websites

2006-05-19T18:32:00.000Z

These are not government websites. They are websites designed and operated by three political parties that are fighting tooth and nail to become the next government of Nova Scotia. One of them will form the next government and thus will, in a few weeks, be in charge of the design and operation of all Nova Scotia government websites. Their campaign sites can be viewed as a part of their resume as they compete for voter approval.

Nova Scotia Liberal Party
Election Campaign Home Page
Failed Validation: 13 errors

Failed validation report: Nova Scotia Liberal Party 2006 election website home page. For a full-size view, click on the image.

Nova Scotia Progressive Conservative Party
Election Campaign Home Page
Failed Validation: 21 errors

Failed validation report: Nova Scotia Progressive Conservative Party 2006 election website home page. For a full-size view, click on the image.

Nova Scotia NDP
Election Campaign Home Page
Failed Validation: 202 errors

Failed validation report: Nova Scotia NDP 2006 election website home page. For a full-size view, click on the image.

"It is highly recommended that X/HTML coding be checked by running all documents through an X/HTML syntax checker. Style sheets should be checked with the free W3C online validator."

This statement, including the links, is quoted directly from the Nova Scotia Government's Website Design and Content Standards. The validation recommended by this government standard is the W3C Validation Service, the same one I used to test these political party websites.

BTW, the Nova Scotia Government's Website Design and Content Standards page validates successfully.

Addendum: May 22, 2006 11:23 UTC
This is a government website. Elections Nova Scotia is completely ignoring the government website standards.

Elections Nova Scotia
Elections Nova Scotia Home Page
Failed Validation: 38 errors

Failed validation report: Elections Nova Scotia website home page. For a full-size view, click on the image.

More:
Elections Nova Scotia
Candidates and Parties
Failed Validation: 35 errors

Elections Nova Scotia
Results and Stats
Failed Validation: 34 errors

Elections Nova Scotia
Voter Information
Failed Validation: 35 errors

Elections Nova Scotia
FAQ Page
Failed Validation: 60 errors

Elections Nova Scotia
Electoral District Finder
Failed Validation: 61 errors

Here's an example of a government page that is designed without consideration of how it will work for the viewing citizen:Elections Nova Scotia
Map of Electoral District #2, AntigonishThis should take you to a map of the Antigonish electoral district. What you get is a huge 1.9 megabyte file that takes a full 7 minutes to download if you are on a dial-up connection (about 40% of connections are still dial-up at 56k). After the download was complete, I got not a map but an error message: "There was an error opening this document. This viewer cannot decrypt this document." This is a pdf file that requires proprietary Adobe Acrobat software to display the map. There's nothing wrong with my Adobe Acrobat software — it has worked fine with numerous pdf files I've looked at in the last few months. The main point is that this huge file with the long download time, and the pdf decryption hassle, is completely unnecessary. You can provide a satisfactory map like this as an ordinary jpg or gif file. A good full-screen map (say, 1000 pixels wide) would be about half a megabyte in jpg format, much less than the pdf file, and there would be no decryption problems.

The only reason for providing this map in pdf format is the convenience of the webmaster; if the interest of the citizen viewer was taken into consideration pdf would not be the choice.

What Is a Good Government Website?

2006-05-10T14:51:00.000Z

Government websites…must raise citizen confidence by enabling a good user experience. Therefore usability must be ensured…What is a good government website from a usability perspective? It is a website that meets the goals of stakeholders while meeting the needs of users in the performance of their tasks. It goes beyond minimum adherence to best practice and policy…
— Source: Quality Framework for UK Government Website Design

Invalid Pages: Public Safety (PSEPC)

2006-05-10T13:07:00.000Z

The website operated by Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness Canada (PSEPC) routinely ignores the Government's standards for website design. Six examples follow:

Example:
Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness Canada
A-Z Index
Failed Validation: 78 errors

Failed validation report: PSEPC page: A-Z Index. For a full-size view, click on the image.

Example:
Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness Canada
Department Organization
Failed Validation: 82 errors

Failed validation report: PSEPC page: Department Organization. For a full-size view, click on the image.

Example:
Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness Canada
First Responders
Failed Validation: 74 errors

Failed validation report: PSEPC page: First Responders. For a full-size view, click on the image.

Example:
Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness Canada
Basic rescue skills
Failed Validation: 83 errors

Failed validation report: PSEPC page: Basic rescue skills. For a full-size view, click on the image.

Example:
Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness Canada
Citizens
Failed Validation: 74 errors

Failed validation report: PSEPC page: Citizens. For a full-size view, click on the image.

Example:
Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness Canada
Site Map
Failed Validation: 13057 errors

Failed validation report: PSEPC Site Map. For a full-size view, click on the image.

These validation tests were performed by using the W3C Validation Service.

Invalid Pages: CBC

2006-05-08T15:57:00.000Z

The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation's website routinely ignores the Government's standards for website design. Seven examples follow:

Example:
CBC home page
Failed Validation: 200 errors

Failed validation report: CBC home page. For a full-size view, click on the image.

Example:
CBC News
Failed Validation: 185 errors

Failed validation report: CBC News page. For a full-size view, click on the image.

Example:
CBC Weather
Failed Validation: 93 errors

Failed validation report: CBC Weather page. For a full-size view, click on the image.

Example:
CBC Sports
Failed Validation: 193 errors

Failed validation report: CBC Sports page. For a full-size view, click on the image.

Example:
CBC Program Guide
Personalities A-Z Index
Failed Validation: 565 errors

Failed validation report: CBC Personalities A-Z Index page. For a full-size view, click on the image.

Example:
CBC Archives
Canadian Satellites
Failed Validation: 318 errors

Failed validation report: CBC Archives — Canadian Satellites page. For a full-size view, click on the image.

Example:
CBC Archives
Science and Technology
Failed Validation: 691 errors

Failed validation report: CBC Archives — Science and Technology page. For a full-size view, click on the image.

These validation tests were performed by using the W3C Validation Service.

Invalid Page: House of Commons

2006-05-08T06:15:00.000Z

The Parliament of Canada website routinely ignores the Government's standards for website design.

Example:
Welcome to the Parliament of Canada
Failed Validation: 38 errors

Failed validation report: Welcome to the Parliament of Canada page. For a full-size view, click on the image.

This validation test was performed by using the W3C Validation Service.

Valid Page: Government of Canada

2006-05-06T08:07:00.000Z

This week, I've looked at more than 300 webpages operated by the Government of Canada, and checked each for compliance with the Government's standards for website design by running them through the W3C Validator. All of these GoC pages have failed validation, except one:

Government of Canada
Home Page
Successful Validation

Successful validation report: Government of Canada home page. For a full-size view, click on the image.

This validation test was performed by using the W3C Validation Service.

Invalid Page: Library and Archives Canada

2006-05-05T08:32:00.000Z

The Library and Archives Canada website routinely ignores the Government's standards for website design.

Example:
Library and Archives Canada
Canadian Confederation Bibliography
Failed Validation: 815 errors

Failed validation report: Library and Archives Canada, Confederation Bibliography. For a full-size view, click on the image.

These validation tests were performed by using the W3C Validation Service.

Invalid Pages: Finance Dept., Ottawa

2006-05-04T15:53:00.000Z

The Finance Department's website routinely ignores the Government's standards for website design. Six examples follow:

Example:
Department of Finance
Home Page
Failed Validation: 23 errors

Failed validation report: Department of Finance home page. For a full-size view, click on the image.

Example:
Department of Finance
The Honourable James M. Flaherty, P.C., M.P.
Minister of Finance
Failed Validation: 2 errors

Failed validation report: Department of Finance, Minister's page. For a full-size view, click on the image.

Example:
Department of Finance
Diane Ablonczy Parliamentary Secretary
to the Minister of Finance
Failed Validation: 5 errors

Failed validation report: Department of Finance, Parliamentary Secretary's page. For a full-size view, click on the image.

Example:
Department of Finance
Deputy Minister Ian E. Bennett
Failed Validation: 3 errors

Failed validation report: Department of Finance, Deputy Minister's page. For a full-size view, click on the image.

Example:
Department of Finance
Accessibility, Design Standards
Failed Validation: 9 errors

Failed validation report: Department of Finance, Accessibility, Design Standards page. For a full-size view, click on the image.

Example:
Department of Finance
FAQ
Failed Validation: 80 errors

Failed validation report: Department of Finance, FAQ page. For a full-size view, click on the image.

These validation tests were performed by using the W3C Validation Service.

Here's another problem in this Department of Finance website.

In the Accessibility, Design Standards page, this statement appears: "The Finance Canada WWW site has been designed...for use with a computer screen resolution of 800×600 pixels."

Data gathered over the last six months, at three websites with a total traffic of 76,600 viewers, yielded the following statistics on monitor screen sizes in use at this time:

    Width × height (in pixels)
       800×600     29%
      1024×768     64%
      1152×864      1%
      1280×1024     6%

The 800×600 screen, favoured by the Department of Finance as its standard for the purpose of designing its website, is now used by less than one-third of Internet viewers. By this arbitrary decision, the Department of Finance has cavalierly brushed aside more than two-thirds of Canada's population. Any taxpayer-funded website should work properly when viewed with any monitor screen from a width of 800 pixels to 1280 pixels.

And there's yet another problem with the Department of Finance's approach to website design. In the Accessibility, Design Standards page, this statement appears: "The Finance Canada WWW site has been designed for use with MS Internet Explorer version 4 or more recent and Netscape version 4.7 or more recent."

Precise browser statistics are impossible to obtain, but the following are believed to be reasonably representative figures for the WWW at this time:

         IE          75%
         Firefox      9%
         Safari       5%
         Opera        3%
         Mozilla      2%
         Netscape     1%
These do not add to 100% because other browsers
exist and are used to some extent.

The Department of Finance policy to design its website to work with Netscape, while ignoring Firefox, Safari and Opera, is at least five years behind the times. It cannot be defended today. Any taxpayer-funded website should work properly when viewed with any of the most-used browsers — IE (for both PC and Mac), Netscape, Firefox, Safari and Opera, at least.

This is easy to accomplish — design your website to meet the W3C standards, and then all browsers that comply with these standards (as all good browsers should) will display your website properly. This is the reasoning behind the Canadian Government's policy requiring that: "All GoC Web sites must comply with W3C Priority 1 and Priority 2 checkpoints to ensure sites can be easily accessed by the widest possible audience." This is the reason I've tested these GoC pages with the W3C Validator. This is the reason these GoC pages should not contain validation errors.

Invalid Pages: Library of Parliament

2006-05-03T23:08:00.000Z

The Library of Parliament's website routinely ignores the Government's standards for website design. There are 4127 webpages in the section dealing with the Federal Political Experience of Members of the House of Commons (four examples below), and another 876 webpages in the section dealing with the Federal Political Experience of Senators.

That's a total of 5003 webpages, in this "Federal Political Experience" section alone, and each of these contains dozens of errors.

Example:
Library of Parliament
Federal Political Experience
Harper, The Right Hon. Stephen Joseph
Failed Validation: 28 errors

Failed validation report: Library of Parliament webpage Federal Political Experience, The Right Hon. Stephen Joseph Harper. For a full-size view, click on the image.

Example:
Library of Parliament
Federal Political Experience
MacKay, The Hon. Peter Gordon
Failed Validation: 28 errors

Failed validation report: Library of Parliament webpage Federal Political Experience, The Hon. Peter Gordon MacKay. For a full-size view, click on the image.

Example:
Library of Parliament
Index Page
Members of the House of Commons
1867 to Date, By Name – Z...
Failed Validation: 213 errors

Failed validation report: Library of Parliament Index Page Z, Members of the House of Commons, 1867 to 2006. For a full-size view, click on the image.

Example:
Library of Parliament
Index Page
Members of the House of Commons
1867 to Date, By Name – A...
Failed Validation: 433 errors

Failed validation report: Library of Parliament Index Page A, Members of the House of Commons, 1867 to 2006. For a full-size view, click on the image.

All of these Library of Parliament webpages have been updated in the last four months, thus should be fully compliant with the latest government standards for website design.

These validation tests were performed by using the W3C Validation Service.

Here's another problem in these Library of Parliament pages.

Each of the MP index pages has this near the top:
"To view the federal political experience of a Member of the House of Commons, click on one of the underlined names listed below."
Problem: There are no "underlined names below". There are lots of names, but none are underlined.
Example:
Members of the House of Commons
1867 to Date, By Name – S...
Each of the Senator index pages has this near the top:
"To view the federal political experience of a Senator, click on one of the underlined names listed below."
Problem: There are no "underlined names below". There are lots of names, but none are underlined.
Example:
Senators, 1867 to Date By Name

The Early Days of the WWW

2006-04-22T14:43:00.000Z

Now, in 2006, it is easy to forget that the World Wide Web was starting up just ten years ago, in the mid-1990s. Ten years ago, we were seeing the very first websites — of organizations such as governments, businesses and universities, and of individuals.

Websites that were brand new in the mid-1990s, the Early Days, are now celebrating their tenth anniversaries.

Fourteen weeks ago, on January 15, 2006, Transport Canada celebrated its 10th year on the web. This celebration webpage includes screenshots of archived copies of the website in its early days, including one showing its appearance in August 1997 (displayed in the Microsoft Internet Explorer browser, which did not exist at that time).

Here's the appearance of the Transport Canada website in November 1996, as displayed in Netscape, the dominant browser of that time.

The Transport Canada website in the early days. This image was archived on December 11, 1997, but this design was online from November 1, 1996. For a full-size view, click on the image.

Archived Websites — 1996 or Earlier

Security Policy-Manager's Handbook
Treasury Board of Canada
September 27, 1996

Government of Newfoundland and Labrador
October 22, 1996
October 27, 1996
December 22, 1996

Government of Prince Edward Island
October 22, 1996
October 27, 1996
December 19, 1996

Government of Manitoba
October 22, 1996
October 27, 1996
December 22, 1996

Government of Nova Scotia
October 22, 1996
October 27, 1996
"This site has been optimized for Netscape Navigator® version 2.0 or equivalent."

National Archives of Canada
October 29, 1996

Government of Saskatchewan
November 5, 1996
December 22, 1996

World-Wide Web Access Statistics for Saskatchewan Government website December 1996

Huron Public Education System, Huron County, Ontario
November 6, 1996

Huron Public Education System Web Site Archives
November 6, 1996

December 24, 1996
"This site best viewed with Netscape version 2.0 or greater."

Queen's Printer, British Columbia
December 18, 1996
"This page has been accessed 16,811 times since June 19, 1996."

York Region Board of Education, Ontario
December 18, 1996
"This page is best-viewed with Netscape 2.0..."

Prime Minister's home page
December 21, 1996

Department of Veterans Affairs, Ottawa
December 22, 1996

Canada's Climate Change Voluntary Challenge and Registry
December 26, 1996

Department of Indian and Northern Affairs, Ottawa
December 29, 1996

Canadian Space Agency
December 30, 1996

The above are the dates on which the earliest known copies were archived, and are not the dates these websites first appeared online.

Websites — Earliest Known Archived Copy 1997

Government of British Columbia
July 8, 1997

Ontario Ministry of Education
December 10, 1997
"This site is best viewed using Netscape Navigator, which supports a large set of HTML extensions, some of which have been used in documents located here. Netscape browsers are available free of charge to students, staff, and faculty members of education institutions, charitable non-profit organizations, and public libraries."

Websites — Earliest Known Archived Copy 1998

Government of Quebec (for screen 640×480 pixels)
January 28, 1998

Central Index of Canadian WWW Servers
Archive copy dated: December 5, 1998
Webpage dated: January 18, 1995

Best Viewed in Internet Explorer

2006-04-18T15:03:00.000Z

It is a sure sign of bad design, when a website posts a requirement that the viewer must use a specific browser to access the information in the site.

It is inappropriate for a taxpayer-funded organization to restrict access to its website by posting a requirement that the viewer must use a specific browser.

One website visitor, who encountered a note telling him that he could only have that information if he installed a different browser, described his reaction this way: "Hang on — I am spending my time and my money visiting your site — and you're telling me I have to change my setup before I can get information which will allow me to spend even more of my time at your site?"

All taxpayer-funded websites should be designed to work properly with a variety of browsers and to be viewable on a representative variety of monitor screen sizes.

Any taxpayer-funded website should work properly when viewed with any of the most-used browsers — IE (for both PC and Mac), Netscape, Firefox, Safari and Opera, at least.

Any taxpayer-funded website should work properly when viewed with any monitor screen from a width of 800 pixels to 1280 pixels.

Data gathered over the last six months, at three websites with a total traffic of 76,600 viewers, yielded the following statistics on monitor screen sizes in use at this time:

    Width × height (in pixels)
       800×600     29%
      1024×768     64%
      1152×864      1%
      1280×1024     6%

The widest screens now in use by a noticeable proportion of Internet users have a width of 1280 pixels.

In the March 2005 issue of PC World magazine (the top PC magazine) there is an article rating the "Top Ten Monitors" then available. All ten of them had screen displays 1280px wide by 1024px high. That was a year ago. There is a strong trend toward these wider screens.

It is obvious that any new website, and any upgraded website, should now be designed to work properly when viewed on any screen width from 800 pixels to 1280 pixels, as the viewer may choose. Any website operated by a government department or agency that fails this requirement is a clear sign of incompetent website management.

Examples of Bad Website Design

Port Moody Public Library, British Columbia:– "The Port Moody Public Library Web site was designed for an 800x600 pixel display. If you are set on 1024x768 or higher, the top bar may not appear correctly. We decided to use 800x600 because a substantial percentage of people still use 800x600 display sizes and a 800x600 designed display can appear easily in a 1024x768 display, but not visa versa." Note that astonishing statement: "...a 800x600 designed display can appear easily in a 1024x768 display, but not visa versa." That's simply not true. A competently-designed website can adjust itself to display properly on either screen width.

Howe Sound School District No. 48, British Columbia:– "You will need Macromedia Flash Player to view this site."

Prince Rupert School District 52, British Columbia:– Macromedia Flash is needed to view documents in this website.

Saanich Indian School Board, British Columbia:– "This site is best viewed with an 800x600 screen and Internet Explorer."

Avon Maitland District School Board, Ontario:– "Best Viewed using 800x600 screen settings"

AMDEC, Avon Maitland District Education Centre, Ontario:– "Best viewed at 800x600 dpi."

Note that the AMDEC website design team confuses dpi (dots per inch, a scanner setting) with pixels (which describes monitor screen sizes). There is another problem with this AMDEC website. It displays the W3C logo indicating full compliance with current W3C HTML 4.01 standards. However, when this site was checked, the W3C Validator reported "Result: Failed validation, 8 errors".

Sudbury Catholic District School Board:– "Best viewed 800x600."

Town of Mississippi Mills, Ontario:– "Best viewed at 800x600." And "Version 4 Browsers or higher" — they exclude Firefox, not now available in version 4, or even version 3. The latest Firefox now available is version 1.5.

Waterloo Region District School Board, Ontario:– "This site is best viewed...using Internet Explorer 4+/Netscape 4+". (If you use Firefox or Safari or Opera, tough.)

Superior-Greenstone District School Board, Ontario:– "Best viewed in Internet Explorer" (with Microsoft Internet Explorer logo). You've got to give them credit — this school board clearly states its exclusionary policy: " **MENU functions will not work in NETSCAPE** " (They don't mention Safari, Firefox, or Opera, but their menu functions don't work in these browsers either.)

The Corporation of the County of Lambton, Ontario:– "This site is optimized for Microsoft Internet Explorer."

That's an interesting phrase, "is optimized for". Here, it seems to be a euphemism for "prefers not to serve second-rate browsers — that is, any other than".

Canadian Library Association:– "This site best viewed at 800x600."

They expect me to buy a monitor to suit their choice of site design?

Riverside School Board, Quebec:– "Microsoft Internet Explorer browser 5.x or better is strongly recommended."

Western Quebec School Board, Quebec:– "This web site is best viewed with Internet Explorer."

Annapolis Valley Regional School Board, Nova Scotia:– "This site is best viewed in Internet Explorer."

Western Counties Regional Library, Nova Scotia:– "This site is best viewed in Internet Explorer."

Municipality of East Hants, Nova Scotia:– "Best viewed in Internet Explorer at 800x600."

Edmonton School Board, Alberta:– "This site is best viewed...using Internet Explorer."

Fort McMurray Public School District, Alberta:– "This site is best viewed in 1024x768 resolution using MS IE 6.0 or higher". They mean it. On a screen less than 1024px wide, this website runs off the right-hand side. And, if you are using any browser other than IE, you are denied access to other parts of the website because the links do not work. Unless you use this school board's chosen browser, you cannot look at "What's New", or "Schools", or "School Board", or "Our District", or any other part of this site.

Rocky View School Division No. 41, Alberta:– "This website requires a newer version of the Macromedia FLash player than the one you now have. Currently, you have version 3 and version 6 is required."

Lakeland Catholic Board of Education, Alberta:– This school board doesn't bother with statements about using Internet Explorer to view their website. They just ignore any other browser. This site leaves your screen blank when you try to look at it with any browser other than Microsoft IE.

Medicine Hat School District No. 76, Alberta:– "This site is best viewed with at least Explorer 5.X at 800x600." With this exclusionary statement, this school board website actually displays a Microsoft Internet Explorer logo.

The Last Word

Anyone who slaps a 'this page is best viewed with Browser X' label on a Web page appears to be yearning for the bad old days, before the Web, when you had very little chance of reading a document written on another computer, another word processor, or another network.
— Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the World Wide Web

The statement, "If my site doesn't work on the browser you're using then you should get another one" is the clearest possible indication that you are listening to someone who is so ignorant of the basics that they don't even know enough to know how ignorant they are. It is a contemptuous statement used exclusively by the clueless and those too lazy or arrogant to take the trouble to design their pages properly.
— Dick Gaughan

PM Website: Noncompliant

2006-04-06T08:08:00.000Z

The Prime Minister's website does not comply with current Canadian Government standards for website design.

This is a view of the PM's Photo Gallery as it now appears, showing the central images — seven photos — that should be supplied with ALT text. The descriptive text, that should appear on-screen, is missing. The small yellow rectangles, superimposed on the seven central photos, are empty. They should be displaying descriptive text. A larger view (next below) of the same screen, shows the ALT text is supplied for the peripheral images (in accordance with current government requirements) but is missing from the seven central images (contrary to official government requirements).

This image is a montage of the PM's Photo Gallery, showing the ALT texts for seventeen images. Normally, these ALT texts can be seen only one at a time. The descriptive ALT text is supplied for ten peripheral images (in accordance with current government requirements) but is missing from the seven central, most important images (flauting government requirements).

Note: These ALT texts in the PM's website are displayed only by the IE browser. The Firefox browser does not show them. (All images in this blog are equipped with both the ALT and TITLE attributes, providing equivalent text descriptions that can be viewed by anyone using the Firefox browser as well as the IE browser. In my opinion, all of the images in the Prime Minister's website should be equipped with similar equivalent text that is viewable with the Firefox and other standards-compliant browsers.)

The current GoC (Government of Canada) requirement states: "All GoC Web sites and their pages must incorporate text equivalents for non-textual elements, such as graphics and images...to ensure universal accessibility goals are achieved."

"Equivalent information may be provided in a number of ways, including through attributes (e.g., a text value for the alt attribute in HTML...)... Text equivalents must be written so that they convey all essential content..." [This is where the Prime Minister's website fails to meet the requirements — the alt attribute is empty, when it should contain text that describes the photograph.] The name alt is a short form of alternative text.

The following appears in the Common Look and Feel section: "The Government of Canada requires that all federal agencies share a common look and feel for federal Internet / Intranet sites and electronic networks. The Common Look and Feel policy specifies the consistent application of the Federal Identity Program, Official Languages Policy, and accessibility standards to all electronic services, including Government of Canada Internet / Intranet sites, products and deliverables."

A screenshot of this blog, showing equivalent text displayed by the Firefox browser, enabled by the inclusion of a TITLE attribute in the website design. All of the images in the Prime Minister's website should be equipped with a non-empty ALT attribute, and a TITLE attribute as well.

The Firefox browser rsponds to the TITLE attribute by displaying it in a pop-up yellow box when the cursor hovers over the image (see the screenshot next above). Netscape 6.x responds to the TITLE attribute in the same way as Firefox. The Safari browser responds to the TITLE attribute, but in its own unique way — the TITLE text is rendered in the status bar at the bottom of the screen, prepended to the target URL (assuming you've overridden the Safari default that leaves the status bar hidden). The Opera browser displays the TITLE text both as a pop-up tooltip and in the browser's status bar.

[PS April 10, 2006 23:35 UTC]:– Maybe the PM's website should display compliance assurance, something like the following screenshot view, taken April 10, 2006, of part of a government website.

Standards compliance assurance, as shown in a government website, April 10, 2006.

Hansard: HTML versus PDF

2006-04-04T14:50:00.000Z

Is HTML or pdf the better format for distributing text online? The short answer is that it depends on whether the articles are to be viewed and used mainly on the computer screen, or mainly as hardcopy printed on paper.

HTML is much the better choice when the file is destined to be read from a monitor screen. With HTML, the viewer can choose a font size and a window width to match his/her preference, so the text is easy to read.

When the file is destined for printing on paper, and the precise printed page layout is important, pdf is better — pdf is designed for printing, not browsing.

With pdf the user has no choice of line length for on-screen reading. At a nice font size the page often doesn't fit on the screen. Reading two-column output requires either a tiny font or lots of sideways scrolling. Page breaks get in the way, often forcing the viewer to scroll up and down several times to get the last few words on the previous page and the first few words on the following page; HTML documents never deliver that kind of needless hassle (always experienced at the receiving end and never at the sending end).

In pdf, hyperlinks work badly, and often not at all.

Searching a document for a word or phrase is much easier in HTML than in pdf.

The arguments in favour of pdf are advanced by people at the sending end, website designers, and the arguments against pdf are advanced by people at the receiving end, viewers.

The arguments in favour of HTML are advanced by people at the receiving end, viewers, and the arguments against HTML are advanced by people at the sending end, website designers.

Hansard documents are written reports of spoken words, thus are purely text with no graphics, no maps, no tables — straight text only.

Good, standards-compliant HTML is always better than pdf for use on the web, for delivering straight-text documents.

Hansard reports of Legislature debates should always be presented online in HTML. A second-choice version in pdf may be made available online, if necessary to placate sending-end control freaks.

Where Hansard is available in both forms, indexed side-by-side for equal accessibility, it would be very interesting to see the server logs to compare how often one format or the other is chosen by the citizens.

It is noteworthy that these server logs are controlled, not by citizens (who favour HTML) but by webmasters (who favour pdf). I've never seen Hansard download statistics made public in any situation where both formats are equally available; this drought of statistical information is compatible with the theory that those who oppose HTML are the same people who control access to the download statistics and would be reluctant to release statistics showing that citizens strongly prefer HTML.

A thought: why are blogs never in pdf?

This blog, and all the blogs I've ever seen, is presented in HTML, giving the viewer complete control of the font size. The viewer also can control the line length by adjusting his/her window width. Bloggers are hungry for an audience — no sane (or otherwise) blogger will drive his/her audience away by forcing them to endure the hassles of pdf. Blogs are never even offered with an alternative choice of pdf. Blogs are destined from the beginning to be read on-screen, and for a good reason are never delivered in pdf. The same reason applies with equal force to online Hansards, but Hansard decision-makers are usually people who have spent most of their working days in a printing environment, and who are uncomfortable with the freedom that HTML gives to the consumer.

Hansard available in HTML?

Yes Ottawa House of Commons
Yes Ottawa Senate

Yes Yukon Legislature
Yes British Columbia Legislature
Yes Alberta Legislature
Yes Manitoba Legislature
Yes Ontario Legislature
Yes Quebec Legislature
Yes Nova Scotia Legislature
Yes Newfoundland and Labrador Legislature

No Saskatchewan Legislature
No Prince Edward Island Legislature
No Northwest Territories Legislature
No Nunavut Legislature

For any particular session, New Brunswick's Hansard is partly HTML but mostly pdf only. The two formats are mixed together in no discernable system. I'm unable to find an explanation of which New Brunswick Hansard records are presented in HTML and which in pdf.

Nova Scotia Hansard

2006-04-02T16:25:00.000Z

The Legislative Assembly of Nova Scotia has its Hansard online back to April 1994.

The online presentation of the Nova Scotia Hansard is about the worst of any of the thirteen provinces and territories. On a scale of one to ten, with ten being the best, the Nova Scotia Hansard rates a 3.

• For starters, there is no arrangement allowing the viewer to choose among the Hansard records by calendar date for any session of the Legislature. For most citizens, the calendar date is a much more meaningful way to refer to a Hansard record, than to use the session/legislature format (commonly used by the formal legal indexing authorities but without meaning to anyone not an employee of the Legislature staff). For example, in the reference (below) to the earliest mention of "electronic highway", I wrote the date November 9, 1994 rather than "Day 12 of Session One of the 56th Legislature".

Compare the unintelligible organization of the Nova Scotia Hansard with the well-organized index of the Nunavut Legislature's Hansards of the Second Session (which would be even better if they would move the verbose "note about viewing these files" to the bottom of the list of dates).

My personal favourite, for the best indexing of each day's Hansard, is the well-organized, clear arrangement of the Saskatchewan Debates and Proceedings Calendar of the Fourth Session of the Twenty-Third Legislature, using calendar pages with links built into each calendar day. Clear, intuitive, and hard to beat when considered from the point of view of citizens.

A close second, for the best indexing of each day's Hansard, is the well-organized, clear arrangement of the Manitoba Debates and Proceedings Calendar of the Third Session of the Thirty-Eighth Legislature, using calendar pages with links built into each calendar day. Clear, intuitive, and hard to beat when considered from the point of view of citizens. (The reason this comes second to Saskatchewan is: This Manitoba page never gets around to mentioning what documents are indexed here. The word "Manitoba" never appears on this page, and neither does "Hansard".)

The Newfoundland and Labrador Hansard also has a clear, easy-to-use arrangement for indexing the Forty-Fifth General Assembly - Second Session - 2005-06, using calendar pages with links built into each calendar day. (But no mention anywhere of "Newfoundland and Labrador".)

British Columbia's Hansard Finals is a good, clear arrangement for providing easy and accurate access to the record for any individual day's session (which would be even better if the title was more descriptive, such as "Hansard Finals, February-March 2005"). Note that British Columbia includes, at the top, the formal identification "6th Session, 37th Parliament" for those who may need this information, but they put it in small type in recognition that, for most viewers, this is irrelevant.

• Take a look at this page from the Nova Scotia Hansard online. That way-too-dark gray background. And why the quadruple spacing after each paragraph? If you print this page, the extravagant spacing will gobble up twice as much paper as needed.

It all makes you wonder if this Hansard was trashed by a disgruntled employee. For a little while, I considered that possibility, but discarded it after applying Hanlon's Razor (never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by incompetence).

A search of the Nova Scotia Hansard for the earliest occurrence of "information highway" turned up one on November 7, 1994.

The earliest mention of "electronic highway" is on November 9, 1994. On the same day, in fact in the same motion, there is also the earliest mention of "internet".

The phrase "the most up-to-date wireless overlay on the information highway" is found in the Hansard for December 14, 1994. If you want to read that in context, it is there, but you'll have a tough time getting to it — the Hansard record for the First Session of the 56th Legislature is not available for each individual day, but instead the entire Hansard for the whole session is provided as a single HTML file, an appalling twelve megabytes that you will have to download (one more example of the morass that is the Nova Scotia Hansard online).

Later update:– It turns out that, in fact, the Hansard for each individual day of the First Session of the 56th Legislature actually is available, contrary to this statement "Prior to March 1996, no day by day option appears, but rather the full transcript of the entire session in one page" now displayed in the Search Hansard page of the Nova Scotia Hansard website. That phrase "the most up-to-date wireless overlay on the information highway" can be found in the Hansard for December 14, 1994.

New Brunswick Hansard

2006-04-01T16:53:00.000Z

The New Brunswick Legislative Assembly's Hansard is produced and available in two languages, English and French. Both versions are available online back to February 6, 1996.

The phrase information highway or l'autoroute de l'information is found in the New Brunswick Hansard report dated February 6, 1996. This is the earliest New Brunswick Hansard record available online. It is possible that an earlier mention of "information highway" or "l'autoroute de l'information" occurs in the printed New Brunswick Hansard.

I did not find a search service for the New Brunswick Hansard. (The occurrence of "information highway", mentioned above, was found by accident, while viewing some of the Hansard reports selected at random.) Perhaps the complexities encountered in building an effective and reasonably efficient search engine, that must work equally well in either of two languages, are a factor in this lack.

Some of these New Brunswick Hansard reports are in pdf format, others are in HTML. I did not discern any pattern for either format, and found no explanation of the way in which the format of a particular Hansard report is determined.

I found no mention of any plan to make Hansard records before February 6, 1996 available online.

Manitoba Hansard

2006-04-01T10:29:00.000Z

The Manitoba Legislative Assembly has its Hansard online back to December 1994. Fortunately, all of these Hansard reports are available in HTML. From November 2002, they are also available in pdf format.

Anyone looking for good examples of bloatware can do no better than to look at the Manitoba Hansard's HTML files. They contain an amazing quantity of pure bloat. Wikipedia's article on software bloat states that "the cause may be a programmer's lack of attention to optimization or design, often frowned upon by other programmers as a sign of carelessness or laziness." Here's a prime example, from Manitoba Hansard, October 28, 2005




Mr. Speaker:







Dispense.



That bloated code (above) produces exactly the same screen display as the following:

Mr. Speaker: Dispense. 

There are no navigation links in any page, HTML or pdf. All pages are orphans.

A search of the Manitoba Hansard for the earliest mention of "information highway" turned up one on June 13, 1995.

The earliest mention of "internet" is believed to be on December 1, 1994. This is the earliest Manitoba Hansard record available online, thus is the earliest that I could search. It is possible that an earlier mention of "internet" occurs in the printed Manitoba Hansard.

I found no mention of any plan to make Hansard records before December 1994 available online.

PM Website: Citizen Unfriendly

2006-03-30T22:10:00.000Z

The Prime Minister's website is badly designed, from the point of view of a citizen with less-than-perfect eyesight. When viewed in Internet Explorer on the PC – the most-used browser on the most-used personal computer – this website has been designed to prevent the browser from displaying enlarged text.

On March 30th, the PM's front page looked like this when viewed in the IE browser set to display a larger type size. The type is the normal size (not enlarged) because the webpage design prevents the IE browser from effecting the type enlargement requested by the viewer.

As displayed by the IE browser (on a PC), set for enlarged text. The text is not enlarged, despite the viewer's request. For a full-size view, click on the image.

As displayed by the Firefox browser, set for enlarged text. The text is enlarged, as requested by the viewer. For a full-size view, click on the image.

As displayed by the Safari browser, set for enlarged text. The text is enlarged, as requested by the viewer. For a full-size view, click on the image.

As displayed by the Netscape browser, set for enlarged text. Some of the text is enlarged, as requested by the viewer, but the captions are shown normal size due to the webpage design. For a full-size view, click on the image.

As displayed by the Mac IE browser, set for enlarged text. The text is enlarged, as requested by the viewer. For a full-size view, click on the image.

The PM's webpage text is enlarged, as requested by the viewer, by three out of five browsers (and partially enlarged by a fourth), leaving only one browser that is prevented by the webpage design from displaying enlarged text. Three and a half out of five – that might seem to be a reasonably good record, until you recall that 80% of people surfing the Internet are using the IE browser for the PC, the only one that cannot enlarge the text as requested by the viewer. This means that, by implementing a faulty webpage design, this site is preventing a large majority of its viewers from obtaining enlarged type. One wonders what the site designers are thinking. Is anyone minding the store?

This shows the largest-size type obtainable using the IE browser for the Mac, (but not available for the Prime Minister's website using the IE browser for the PC). For a full-size view, click on the image. (If you have enabled automatic image resizing, the full-size view probably will not display properly.)

This shows the largest-size type obtainable using the Firefox browser. For a full-size view, click on the image. (If you have enabled automatic image resizing, the full-size view may not display properly.)

[Later, April 4, 2006 21:28 UTC]: The Microsoft Internet Explorer (IE) browser is notorious for resisting changes in the displayed text size, even when the user requests a changed size. This IE characteristic appears when viewing certain websites that are not designed to accomodate IE's pecularities. Some website designers are aware of this defect in the IE browser, and adjust their site design to accomodate viewers using IE.

For example, the Prime Minister's home page will not display enlarged text when viewed in the MS IE browser, even when this browser is set to show the "Larger" or "Largest" text size.

In contrast, this Government Online blog is designed so that the IE browser is able to display text sized "Medium" or "Larger" or "Largest" in accordance with the viewer's preference. For those viewing this blog in the IE browser, you are welcome to try various text size settings, at your convenience, to see how this blog's text responds. You may wish also to try the response of your browser text size settings when viewing the Prime Minister's home page.

PM Website: Last Week's News

2006-03-29T20:59:00.000Z

The "news" on the Prime Minister's website is now six days old.

On the afternoon of Wednesday, March 29th, the PM's front page looked like this:
Prime Minister's website, 4:00pm EST, March 29, 2006
For larger view, click on image "In a speech given to a group of public servants today, Prime Minister Stephen Harper praised..."

The problem is, this speech was given six days ago, on Thursday, March 23rd, according to the Prime Minister's media centre:
Prime Minister's website, 4:00pm EST, March 29, 2006
For larger view, click on image

PM Website: Antiquated

2006-03-26T07:54:00.000Z

Here's an excellent commentary on the state of the Prime Minister's website. Stephen Taylor calls for "A new, refreshed and modern web presentation of the Prime Ministerial website..."
The Prime Minister's current website "remains quite simplistic in its presentation and web standards..." (Yes!)
"...quite antiquated..." (True.)
Screenshot date: March 25, 2006
For larger image, click on thumbnail

For comparison:

Prime Minister of Great Britain website

Feedback form

Prime Minister of Australia website

Prime Minister of New Zealand website

Feedback form

Prime Minister of France website

Prime Minister of Sweden website

Prime Minister of Japan website

Prime Minister of India website

Prime Minister of Pakistan website

Prime Minister of Bangladesh website

Prime Minister of Jamaica website

Prime Minister of Sri Lanka website

Premier of Cambodia website

Prime Minister of Papua New Guinea website

Feedback

Prime Minister of Kuwait website

Prime Minister of Slovenia website

Prime Minister of Trinidad and Tobago website

Prime Minister of Belize website

Prime Minister's website
over the years:
Prime Minister's website, March 28, 2006
For larger image, click on thumbnail

January 31, 2004

November 22, 2002

September 26, 2001

May 11, 2000

January 16, 1998

December 21, 1996

[Later update, April 8, 2006 23:45 UTC]: Here's a specific example of antiquated:

This photograph of the Queen, as displayed in the Prime Minister's home page, is tiny, just 85×73 pixels — the size of an ordinary postage stamp as it appears on a monitor screen. The file size is a miniscule 8.4 kilobytes.

This image would be small even for for a thumbnail serving as a link to a larger image, but this is not a thumbnail — it is the best this official website can do for Queen Elizabeth II on the occasion of her eightieth birthday. This would have been an appropriate image in 1996, when hard drive storage space cost $600 per gigabyte, and the fastest Internet connection available in most homes in Canada was just 14 kilobits (not bytes) per second. But this is 2006, when hard drive storage space costs only 60¢ per gigabyte, and more than half of homes have connections faster than dial-up, and even dial-up connections operate at 58 kilobits per second.

Today, for 1¢ (one cent, that's retail with all taxes included) you can buy enough hard drive space to store more than 2000 of these tiny images. Saving money could not have been the reason why they decided to use this tiny image. Seems to me the designers of this site are simply many years behind the times, using small images as was appropriate for the way things were in the mid-1990s, and not comprehending the current circumstances.

British Columbia Hansard

2006-03-24T08:26:00.000Z

Among the thirteen provincial and territorial online Hansards in Canada, the British Columbia Hansard is without question the best of them all. On a scale of one to ten, with ten being the best, I would give the British Columbia online Hansard a 9.8 – no other would rise above 6, and most would come in around 4 to 5.

If a group of politically-informed and Internet-literate citizens were to produce a set of guidelines for the presentation and organization of Hansard records on the WWW in a citizen-friendly way, they would come up with something very much like the design of this site by the Legislative Assembly of British Columbia. No other province or territory comes close to the high standard set by this website.

For example (just one of many), the Guide to the Old Hansards Web Project is written in plain English, and and covers the ground thoroughly. British Columbia is the only Hansard site that addresses the question of the Old Hansards – records published in print before the mid-1990s when they began to publish Hansard online simultaneously with the printed version. Once the online version was established, what should be done about the earlier Hansards? Should the government adopt a plan to work back through the earlier print-only Hansards and gradually publish them online? British Columbia has developed such a plan, and has described it publicly. No other province has addressed this question.

Yukon is the only territory whose Hansard goes back before the rise of the Internet. Early on, Yukon published its pre-Internet Hansard online, going back about ten years to November 1987.

The Legislative Assembly of British Columbia has its Hansard online back to January 1970.

British Columbia's Hansard is available in HTML from the beginning on January 22, 1970. It is also available in pdf beginning on February 12, 2002. The pdf and HTML versions of Hansard do not have identical content – the information is not quite the same in the two versions. For any given day, both versions contain the near-verbatim Hansard transcript of the debates on the floor of the Legislature; the pdf version also contains a list of the cabinet ministers, and a list of the MLAs, that do not appear in the HTML version; these lists are a useful addition to the Hansard record. As usual, for any given day the pdf version supplies an orphan page, with no navigational links to any other page in the website. The HTML version supplies a page with a navigational link enabling the viewer to access the other content in the site.

Beginning on October 6, 2003, the Hansard report for each day includes online video.

Many of the provincial and territorial Hansard websites include a page of links to the other twelve provincial and territorial Hansard websites. The British Columbia Hansard site has the best page of links to the others.

A search of the British Columbia Hansard for the earliest mention of "information highway" turned up one on May 13, 1994.

The earliest mention of "internet" is on June 29, 1995.

Northwest Territories Hansard

2006-03-24T07:31:00.000Z

The Legislative Assembly of the Northwest Territories has its Hansard online back to December 1998. The index would be better if the sessions were identified by calendar date, in addition to the formal session/assembly style — the "Fifth Session of the 14th Assembly" means little to the average citizen.

This site contains a clear explanation of the system for naming these Hansard files. "Each Hansard is named according to its particular Assembly date – for example Hn990908.pdf is the Hansard for September 8th, 1999."

Unfortunately, all of these Hansard reports are in pdf (Adobe Acrobat) format. There are no navigation links in any page. All pages are orphans.

I am unable to find a search service for the Northwest Territories Hansard.

Nunavut Hansard

2006-03-23T18:30:00.000Z

The Nunavut Legislative Assembly's Hansard is produced and available in two languages, English and Inuktitut.

The Nunavut Hansard in English is online back to March 9, 2004. Unfortunately, all of these Hansard reports are in pdf format. There are no navigation links in any page. All pages are orphans.

The Nunavut Hansard in Inuktitut is available online.

I am unable to find a search service for the English version of the Nunavut Hansard.

Searching for an Inuktitut word in the Nunavut Hansard:
http://www.inuktitutcomputing.ca/HansardSearch/
Also see: Inuktitut Computing dot C A
http://www.inuktitutcomputing.ca/main_en.html

Saskatchewan Hansard

2006-03-23T11:09:00.000Z

The Saskatchewan Legislative Assembly has its Hansard online back to June 1982. Unfortunately, all of these Hansard reports are in pdf (Adobe Acrobat) format. There are no navigation links in any page. All pages are orphans.

A search of the Saskatchewan Hansard for the earliest mention of "information highway" turned up one on March 25, 1993.

The earliest mention of "internet" is on March 6, 1996.

Quebec Hansard

2006-03-23T10:11:00.000Z

The Quebec Legislature has its Journal des debats online back to March 2001. Each webpage has navigation links enabling the viewer to access other parts of this site.

Newfoundland and Labrador Hansard

2006-03-22T21:05:00.000Z

The Legislative Assembly of Newfoundland and Labrador has its Hansard online back to March 1998. These records are well indexed by date, and the record for each day is available as chosen by the viewer.

These daily records are "orphan" webpages. For example, the Hansard record for March 24, 1998. If you click on this link, you will arrive at a webpage with no navigation links enabling you to go to any other content in this site. One of the basic rules of website design is that each and every webpage should have navigation links that enable the viewer to find his/her way to the other pages in that site. Search engines often provide deep links that take the visitor directly to the webpage with the content they want. Once in that page, how does the viewer get access to other pages in the same site?

Unfortunately, at least one of the navigation links points to the wrong page. In the webpage Forty-Third General Assembly - Third Session - 1998 there is a link for the Hansard record for March 13, 1998 (the earliest Hansard webpage in this site). However, if you click on this link, you will be taken to the Hansard record for May 13, 1998. I am unable to find the correct file for March 13, 1998 -- it appears the May 13 file was uploaded to the URL for the March 13 file.

I am unable to find a search service for the Newfoundland and Labrador Hansard.

Prince Edward Island Hansard

2006-03-22T20:37:00.000Z

The Legislative Assembly of Prince Edward Island has its Hansard online back to January 1997. These records are well indexed by date. The viewer, using "Select a Sitting", can choose any sitting of the Legislature (since Spring 1997), and then is shown calendar pages with a link to each day's Hansard.

The Hansard records are presented in pdf (Adobe Acrobat) format for all sessions – except the Spring 1997 session which is presented in HTML.

The Prince Edward Island Hansard presents its Indexes in pdf format, thus they are useless for anyone trying to access this information online. For example, the Hansard Index Fall 2003 - Spring 2004 is 58 pages in pdf with no hyperlink anywhere. An online index with no links is as useless as (insert well-known rude expression here).

These Hansard records are "orphan" webpages. For example, the record for March 6, 1997. If you click on this link, you will arrive at a webpage with no navigation links enabling you to go to any other content in this site. If Google, or any other search engine, sends you to this webpage, you will have no way to find other pages in the website operated by the Legislative Assembly of Prince Edward Island.

This is a strong negative for this site. Such a decision could have been made only by someone steeped in the print culture, as opposed to someone familiar with how online documents work when viewed with a browser.

A search of the Prince Edward Island Hansard for the earliest occurrence of "information highway" turned up one on March 11, 1997.

Ontario Hansard

2006-03-22T19:36:00.000Z

The Legislative Assembly of Ontario has its Hansard online back to June 1985. These records are clearly indexed by each day's date. Each webpage has navigation links — sort of — giving the viewer easy access to the other Hansard records (this applies only to the HTML format – the pages in pdf do not have any navigation links).

Later update:– I don't understand the organization of the Ontario Hansard online. Consider these two links, both to the same date:
(1) December 8, 1994
(2) December 8, 1994
Both links take you to webpages that seem to be Hansard reports of words spoken on the floor of the Ontario Legislature on December 8, 1994, but how do they relate to each other? I can find no explanation. The comment (above) about good navigation links in each webpage, applies only to the page accessed by the second link. The page accessed by the first link has no useful navigation links at all.

All of Ontario's Hansard records are available in HTML format, from June 4, 1985 onward. Those pages dated after October 20, 1999 are also available in pdf format.

A search of the Ontario Hansard for the earliest occurrence of "information highway" turned up one on June 2, 1994.

The earliest mention of "internet" is on December 8, 1994.

The earliest mention of "electronic highway" occurs on May 17, 1990 (I believe this is the correct date although the date appears nowhere in the page. In fact, nowhere in this page does it state that this is business of the Ontario Legislature — internal evidence leads to this inference.)

Yukon Hansard

2006-03-22T19:13:00.000Z

The Yukon Legislative Assembly has its Hansard online back to November 1987. Unfortunately, I am unable to find a way to view the Hansard record for any particular day. This webpage is a search engine that requires you to do a search on a keyword, before it will show you any Hansard record.
"Enter your query below:"

I did a search on electric for "26 Legislature" and got eleven hits. Each hit then gave me access to the Hansard record for one day. For example, one of these hits pointed to the Hansard for November 10, 1987. This works okay, bringing up the Hansard for that one day. However, this is an "orphan" webpage — it does not have any navigation links to take me to any other webpage in this site. One of the basic rules of website design is that each and every webpage should have navigation links that enable the viewer to find his/her way to the other pages in that site.

A search of the Yukon Hansard for the earliest mention of "information highway" turned up one on May 10, 1994.

The earliest mention of "internet" is on December 1, 1994.

The Yukon Legislature website as it appeared on October 11, 2004. Screenshot date: March 25, 2006. For larger view, click on the image.

Alberta Hansard

2006-03-22T18:44:00.000Z

The Alberta Legislative Assembly has its Hansard online back to 1991. Unfortunately, these records are not accessible.
"Select below to view Hansard document:"
Selecting "22nd Legislature, 3rd Session (1991)"
and then clicking on "Go" should bring up the Hansard for that session, but it does not. Same result for each year 1992 through 2005. I tried this with the Firefox browser, and with Microsoft Internet Explorer; got the same unsuccessful result with both.

[Later update, April 5, 2006, 16:05 UTC]:– The Alberta Hansard is now working, at least a small part of it. The Hansards for the sessions in 2006 are available, but those for all previous sessions, 2005 through 1991, still do not work. The sessions for 2006 are available both in HTML and in pdf. The pdf pages are orphans, of course, but in the Alberta Hansard the HTML pages also are orphans, as for example February 22, 2006, March 15, 2006 and April 4, 2006.

Someone in the Alberta Hansard staff has a wild enthusiasm for line breaks. They are scattered throughout the HTML pages with no regard for where the line breaks should appear. This image (next below) shows a part of the HTML Hansard page for February 23, 2006:

Alberta Hansard website, part of page for February 23, 2006,
showing ragged text (above) caused by excess line breaks.
For a full-size view, click on the image.

The same text with excess line breaks removed.
For a full-size view, click on the image.

Ottawa Ministers' Expense Accounts

2006-03-22T12:44:00.000Z

Some time ago, a newspaper item stated that all federal cabinet ministers are now required to post their expense accounts online. So I go looking for this information. I go to the Government of Canada website http://canada.gc.ca/main_e.html and look around. There is a Search window. I type in four keywords
cabinet minister expense account
and click on Search. It reports
"2733 documents meet the search criteria".

Number 1 doesn't seem useful. I try the second hit:
2. Guidelines for Ministers' Offices - Part 10 of 19
I get "PAGE NOT FOUND (ERROR 404)".

The Search engine has reported several similar items
"Guidelines for Ministers' Offices - Part (xx) of 19.
All of them lead to an error message.

(Later update:– These error messages were first seen on March 22, 2006. The same result was seen on April 9, 2006, and again on January 25, 2007.)

Still looking for the cabinet ministers' expense accounts online information, I go down the list of items reported by the government search engine. Among the first 100, there are none that lead to any minister's expense account. Abandon that approach.

Go back to the beginning http://canada.gc.ca/main_e.html and try the A to Z Index.

Under E, there is no Expense Account item — nothing between Environment and Exports.

Under M, there is no Minister item — nothing between Milk and Money.

Under C, there is no Cabinet item — the first item is Cable Television.

They say that ministers' expense accounts are available online. Maybe they are, but they are very well hidden.

How do I find them?