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.
As I write this, ten new countries are joining the
European Union. I visited the site of one of them, the Polish Statistical Office (http://www.stat.gov.pl/english/index.htm),
which has a large amount of material available in English. On the home page, having first
visited the Polish version, I notice that the amount of information available in English
is a little less particularly in the electronic publications list. When I scanned the page
I noticed three basic problems: too much information was given, necessitating some
vertical scrolling; the rotating indicators box was distracting and, despite the text
being in the same colour and style as the hyperlinks in the rest of the page, were not
hyperlinked to further detail; the long lists of items under the headings ‘Social
– Economic Data’ and ‘Electronic Publications’ were not sorted into
any order. For this last point, the user would normally be looking for a list sorted
alphabetically.
The page has a copyright date 1996-2002 implying that
nothing has changed for two years – but that is not the case (many NSIs are guilty
here: but the UK and CBS Netherlands have generally abandoned a copyright date and just
make general statements [one does appear [2002] at the bottom of the links page on the CBS
site which took over two minutes to deliver fully the home page! – www.cbs.nl ]
The ‘Hot data’ section covers the most recent
data releases. In the majority of this section, the data were centred in the columns
– most unusual on this site where the data presentation generally was right
justified. And the average wage per month is given to the nearest one hundredth of a
Zloty. The office uses the comma as a decimal separator throughout but the presentation
and understanding of data are worse for the absence of a thousands separator.
The census forms are available on the site but only in
Polish – a fact that the English page does not mention. A couple of instances of the
links going to Polish language pages were found: it would be better not to mention the
information on the English links (as for the electronic publications) rather than raise
expectations.
Four editions of the Yearbook are available providing
all users with a vast array of bilingual tables, neatly organised within sections. Each
table has icons to print, save or send. However, the tables are actually GIF images which
means that the data tables cannot be extracted for further processing or use.
At the top right of the home page is the simple word
‘Publications’, standing separate from the main navigation line. This links to
the publications catalogues - which are extensive – and to some information on the
sale of the publications. The telephone numbers here do not have the national or
international codes and no mention is made as to whether payment could be by credit card.
The prices in the catalogue do not mention postage – or additional charges for
overseas addresses.
Many data are readily available though not always in
the most easy-to-use format. A small amount of improvement on the site navigation and
layout would be well rewarded.
This
review was undertaken using Internet Explorer version 5.50 on 30 April at 14.00 hrs GMT
using a 2 Mbit link to the Internet on a Pentium 4 1.7 GHz machine.
Please
send and comments and suggestions for sites to review to
Ed.Swires-Hennessy@lgdu-wales.gov.uk