Website development has generally been seen as a simple low cost end of the technology business. This is changing as this discussion thread indicates. How is it that Facebook is worth 100Bn USD?
Methinks it is because it was not made for and by government or a government agency. More importantly, it was made for real people with the knowledge of what real people expect of such a website. Of course, there was some imagination on what the real people would need in the future, and therefore there was anticipation and planning for the changing needs of real people. This made it more responsive to the real people. What we are not seeing from most if not all Government websites is anything made for real people. Real people need to do realtime information searches to make quick and informed decisions. This will make the real people more responsive to other real people so that they can remain relevant and in business. By having dysfunctional systems like these websites, what we end up is a cascade of problems that will lead real people to a lot of frustrations. --James