Solid-gold nav bars? Trump plans redesign of government websites US government websites are getting an aesthetic and functional overhaul under a Trump executive order and a new "America by Design" initiative headed by a Silicon Valley veteran and DOGE insider. The president kicked the initiative off last week with an order establishing a National Design Studio and the aforementioned …
Yes but moderning the creaky .gov sites is long overdue. If they actually have someone do a competent "modernizing" BUT they use tacky gold themes and have Trump's face on every page, that's a few minutes of work in the sitewide defaults to fix once he drops dead of a massive heart attack or stroke. Which, if you believe Steve Bannon (and Trump's own recent preoccupation with whether he'll make it into heaven or not) could happen in the next 12 months so here's hoping!
How much will this redesign cost? Agreed, it probably shouldn’t cost all that much - but it isn’t needed, and it will probably cost an arm and a leg after all the embezzlement and kick backs are done with. Money that could be better spent elsewhere.
And if you’re thinking “it couldn’t happen here” then a) give your head a wobble and b) look at the current popularity of parties like Reform.
And if you’re thinking “yeah, seems like a good idea” then wow. You really are either a) spectacularly ill informed or b) beneath contempt.
I was musing the other day that sites designed for kids with mobile devices are a pain in the arse for people doing real work on PCs.
It's amusing that this should be rolled out by a president who struggles to produce a coherent sentence in anything resembling plain English and whose personal taste takes tacky to a new height.
And it will all cost money. Wasn't the cull in actual services supposed to cut costs? So Muricans get fewer services with prettier websites. Plus martial law.
Maybe he could redesign the uniform of all the armed grunts he is unleashing on to America's streets, to allow them to blend in better when guarding Walmart stores.
***** Wasn't the cull in actual services supposed to cut costs?
That's what they *said* it was for. What it was actually for is the harvesting of all that sweet, sweet gubbermint moolah and the neutering of any agency that could try to hinder the Florida Orange Man and/or put him in prison. All in all, it likely increased costs. The one thing for sure is that the national debt is going to go through the roof.
@Tron
"And it will all cost money. Wasn't the cull in actual services supposed to cut costs? So Muricans get fewer services with prettier websites. Plus martial law."
What martial law? And what fewer services? But yes it will cost money-
According to a fact sheet accompanying the order, of the 26,000 estimated federal government websites, only six percent have a "good" or better rating for mobile device performance, while 45 percent are considered entirely unfriendly for mobile use. In addition, the White House said that less than 20 percent of federal government websites use guidance from the US Web Design System standard – a number it wants to boost alongside an overhaul of the standard itself.
I too dont like the 'metro' designing of websites but for government stuff people need to be able to access it.
to use the web site ? Eg those with problems: visual; motor; reading; ... the UK government has some guidance.
Or will Trump deem this DEI and so woke ?
I think that he means Critical Race Theory. Something that I have never got my head around but I see that some people seem to argue endlessly about.
Correct. It was the last Scary Acronym boogyman used by RWNJ media to whip up yet another moral panic in conservatives before DEI arrived. Kids being taught some of the reprehensible things that happened in US history is verboten by these assholes who want to whitewash it.
So they misappropriated the term Critical Race Theory as this evil librul plot to teach schoolchildren how horrible white people are. Since Critical Race Theory sounds much scarier than US History to an uneducated conservative, the louder ones berated numerous school boards demanding that CRT be removed from the curricula. Since CRT is a college level topic it was never taught to kids; but it had served it's purpose as a moral panic to anger conservatives.
You don't really hear about it anymore now that DEI is the panic du jour these days.
I thought CRT meant Cathode Ray Tube, the context being the unfounded fear that people peddled about the "ray tube" being a weapon that fried your brain as you watched the telly. A euphemism for the conspiracy theory of government brain control rather than a medium for freedom of expression.
GOV·UK has a superficially consistent design, I know once you get past that layer its a little wild west, but its something.
I mean the fact there are about 84 entry points to my personal tax page and each page says something different depending on what the weather is, is another thing.
Bland but consistent.
I can only imagine what a smorgasbord board of technical and visual horrors the real (USofA)·GOV has, I was potentially stuck up a mountain in Feb this year in CA due to a surprise snow storm and there were at least 3 official sites offering up to date info on road closures and snow chain usage and well... total guess which one was right and if it worked on Mobile or if it was all a mirage.
Having all government sites following a standard with accessibility functions and coded for desktops and mobile devices makes a lot of sense. My concern is it's something the two time adult video extra is championing, I'm thinking it all end up looking like it was coded in the 90's with a dancing baby, sorry, Trump, on every page. Also syphoning of the funds from the government to a Trump adjacent entity to do the coding is defiantly on the cards.
Without going into the politics of it this may be a good idea - GOV.UK as a website is actually held up as a fairly easy to use site, which works well on mobile, and which has a consistent interface. If the US can replicate that kind of deal then it'll surely improve things for them.
It's just a pity the idea had to be tied up with the whole Trump branding thing.
