Web Design & Accessibility Five Minute Analysis: FCC.gov

Tuesday, February 01, 2005

Lately, there have been a lot of reasons to not like the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). Between the crackdown on supposed indecency, the threat of regulating pay-to-play broadcasting services (like satellite radio and cable television), and the nagging feeling in the pit of my stomach that freedom of speech is being trumped by certain elements within the federal government, there's a lot to not like. Right now, though, let's take a quick peak at FCC.gov to see how a government website SHOULDN'T be.

Before I start, I'd like to point out that I have a great deal of experience working on federal websites. I've participated and led a number of redesigns of federal websites over the last few years, and am currently a federal contractor who designs and redesigns websites for a federal agency. I understand the policies, regulations, and challenges that web architects, developers, designers, and analysts face when building a website for a major federal department.

In other words, I feel that I'm pretty qualified to make this analysis. Besides, I'm doing it for fun anyway. It's good practice for helping new clients and writing drafts for white papers.

I gave myself five minutes to analyze FCC.gov's homepage. In that five minutes, I found four major high-level issues that make it such a poorly designed website. For simplicity sake, I've organized my analysis into four sections, followed by a conclusion. I must warn you, though; this is going to be a long post.

For your own reference, I've included below a screen capture of FCC.gov as of the time this particular rant has been posted. Click on the image to see a larger version of it.

It's ugly

It may seem unprofessional of me to start with "it's ugly", however the truth is, when someone visits a website the first thing that they think about is how the site looks. Don't believe me? Go visit some other website. Even if your purpose is to find a single, specific article, the GUI is the first thing that you see, and its aesthetics are going to determine whether or not you'll continue using that site.

Now to the technical reasons that it's ugly. A website doesn't need to have a ton of pictures to be pretty. What it does need is a GUI that doesn't have your eyes zooming all across the screen looking for information. The overall layout is hard to focus on. This leads me into my second point...

Too much text

Documents, policies, regulations, statements, and press releases. Those are the core of federal websites. The content of most federal sites is pretty dry, consisting of articles and documents about either research studies, regulations, laws, or budget information. It's hard to jazz up data that bland, and really, you can't because of the way that the government does things.

What you can do, though, is add some color and definition to everything. While Section 508 law states that "(c) Web pages shall be designed so that all information conveyed with color is also available without color, for example from context or markup..." it is still entirely possible to add some visual flare to the documents and the overall design of the site.

Accessibility

Accessibility is a big issue for federal website. It is, in fact, the law that all federal websites must validate as Section 508 compliant. What's Section 508? It's part of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 (29 U.S.C. 794d), which was given more prominence and importance in the Workforce Investment Act of 1998. It's purpose is to ensure that people with disabilities can view and access the same information as unimpaired individuals with as little extra effort as possible.

When I ran FCC.gov through Bobby, a popular Section 508 validator, it passed automated verification. On a surface level, yes, it does pass automated verification. However, on a more manual level, it's really not all that accessible. Let me point you to Section 508 law, §1194.22 (m):

When a web page requires that an applet, plug-in or other application be present on the client system to interpret page content, the page must provide a link to a plug-in or applet that complies with §1194.21(a) through (l).

Look closely at FCC.gov's homepage. It's covered in links to Word and Acrobat files. While having them doesn't break any actual 508 regulations, the only place where you can actually find a link to download the plug-ins is on another page, and that link is all the way at the bottom-right corner of the homepage. Not exactly placed in a spot easy to find.

Further, if you absolutely, positively must have documents posted in Word, Acrobat, or PowerPoint formats, you should at least include a text equivalent, such as a plain-text document or HTML version. Especially for something as important as press releases. That's Section 508 law, § 1194.22 (k):

A text-only page, with equivalent information or functionality, shall be provided to make a web site comply with the provisions of this part, when compliance cannot be accomplished in any other way. The content of the text-only page shall be updated whenever the primary page changes.

Further, I'd be willing to be that if I turned on a text-reader, such as JAWS for Windows, which is commonly used by persons with visual disabilities, I'd have a hard time navigating and using the FCC.gov website.

Hierarchy & Navigation

After looking at the FCC.gov homepage for five minutes, the only thing I could derive from the overall design is that whomever designed it is a bit scatterbrained. There is a hierarchy, but you have S-C-R-O-L-L way the heck down to finally get it. There's categories, but they are all completely laid out on the left and right side of the site, and it makes all of the pages excessively long when they don't need to be.

Most federal sites, like HHS.gov, use a compartmentalized categorical organization for their hierarchy. It keeps the homepage clean, concise, and simple to navigate. There's just too much information on FCC.gov's homepage, and too little effort made on their part to organize it.

Conclusions & Suggestions

While it's not all bad, FCC.gov is an example of a federal website that hasn't received the care and thought it deserves. It's a plus that there's a link to the site map at the top of the page. It's good that there's a great deal of information available. It's also good that the site fits in 800x600 resolution without horizontal scrolling.

However...

It's time for a redesign of FCC.gov. First, add some color to the design. Not thick, heavy colors that jump out of the screen at you. It should be subtle and professional looking. The text should be all the same font - preferably a font that's easy on the eyes, such as Verdana or Arial.

The navigation should be simplified. Create some major categories - less than 15 if it's possible - and create a basic navigation scheme for the homepage that uses those 15 in a much more functional and readable way.

In my experience, when press releases come down to the web teams at federal agencies, there isn't a lot of time given to them to get them up on the web. However, just posting press releases as Word and Acrobat documents is lazy, not accessible, and forces users to switch their focus from the FCC website to a document that opens OVER their browser window (or replaces the browser window as is the case with IE).

With that in mind, all press releases should be published in, at the very least, HTML format. If they want to post the press releases in Word and Acrobat formats as well, that's fine, so long as they post a link to download the plug-in to view the documents in that format.

Finally, reduce the amount of information on the homepage by AT LEAST half. It's just way too much information for someone to take in on a visit. I know I praised the fact there's a lot of information on the homepage above, but it's a lot of information, and on slower connections it probably makes for a hellish adventure trying to get FCC.gov loaded in under 15 seconds.

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