Surfing with Ed on the Internet…
by Ed Swires-Hennessy, Local Government Data Unit ~ Wales
Ed continues his appraisals of different national Web
Sites to stimulate use of the Internet, share best practice and encourage debate.
A
very slow opening to the English version of the home page of the South Korean National
Statistics Office site (http://www.nso.go.kr/eng/
) was caused by the many included graphics some of which are animated. The basic structure
of the page with clear top navigation and clearly identified sections of key information
in the left two columns of the page really help the user get access to the relevant items.
The animated graphics to the right column, however, are very distracting when trying to
read the left-hand text. Use of a sans serif typeface in the body of the page, as in the
header, would improve readability. The navigation in the Latest Figures section is
different from that of the other sections: the blue text is hyperlinked, the rest is not.
The
first information request was for population: starting with the searchable database,
KOSIS, the path to population was smooth, if slow. Four options were available –
three caused ‘Server Errors’ but the fourth, a basic Census population did work.
For the more informed user, restricting the requirement to total population for the
counties – an easy operation – reduces the download time. Using a slightly
different approach, I went to a different section in the site – the Statistical
Handbook of Korea: the contents page took too long to download probably because of the
graphics included; access to the individual chapters was then quick despite the presence
of 3-dimensional diagrams and inserted tables as pictures.
‘Indicators
In Graph‘ provides ready-made graphs of 40 prime indicators under various headings:
the three-dimensional pipes or barrels are not helpful and the absence of gridlines on
most charts, together with the dual scale charts, make interpretation more difficult than
necessary. These charts are usable in reports by copying and pasting – though colour
printing would be needed.
The
Surveys section gives a reasonably comprehensive meta-data guide to all of the data
collection activities of the office under 9 principal headings which, for most purposes,
would be sufficient. This includes the initial date of the collection as well as the
publication timetable.
On
first entry to the publications area, I thought that the whole of the output of the office
was electronically available via the net but soon found the heading only to be a catalogue
of those available. Even the publication that is directly available form the home page
appears in the catalogue as a simple entry – without a link to the electronic copy! I
wondered whether this was because they were mainly available only in Korean, but the Korea
in Figures publication is available in English. My Korean was not sufficient to identify
whether the publications were available on the Korean version of the site.
The
standard classifications used in the office are neatly presented in a two-column format
which aids the user to find the relevant part quickly. These cover industry, occupations
and disease. Finally the section on the About NSO gives a welcome message, organisation of
the office, a copy of the relevant legislation – but no contact or location (specific
maps of principal offices) information. The contact information is under ‘Site
help’ but should also be included in ‘About NSO’.
Many
parts of this site were slow to download – even those parts without many graphics.
The statistics availability is high for general items and could be improved for the
specifics. Presentation standards need to be monitored.
This
review was undertaken using Internet Explorer version 5.0 on 3 March at 08.30 hrs GMT
using a 2 Mbit link to the Internet on a Pentium III 866 MHz machine.
Please
send and comments and suggestions for sites to review to