Sunday, October 27, 2013

A Tale Of Two Websites

And no, neither one of them is the much-maligned Obamacare Web site, which I suspect will be fixed much sooner than anyone suspects, allowing us to go back to focusing on the next potential government shutdown and whether it will waste more than the $24 billion wasted on the one that just ended.

But I digress.

The controversy over the Obamacare site problems made me think about the whole issue of the relative efficiency of the private versus the public sector.  To conservatives, of course there is no debate (then again, conservatives don't debate anything anymore, preferring instead to simply believe).  The private sector, in their eyes, is always incredibly, relentlessly efficient.

Even when it isn't.

Because the Obamacare site, like nearly all government Web sites, was designed by a private contractor.  And, as someone who spent years working with several contractors on the design of a particular Web site, I can assure you that they can be anything but efficient.  Speaking personally, I was driven to distraction by being asked the same questions, again and again and again, and giving the same answers each time.  If they were trying to demonstrate efficiency, it was very much lost on me and my colleagues.

Ah, you say, but that's just because their client was a government agency, with all of its inefficient complexity and bureaucratic inertia.  Surely, if the client is a private concern, none of this would be a problem, right?  Surely, the final product would be a model of efficiency.

Wrong again.  Consider the case of two Web sites I have recently dealt with.

First, there is the Web site for the Internal Revenue Service. Given how most people feel about the IRS, you would think this one would be the Darth Vader of Web sites, a veritable black hole of aggravating complexity and failure.  And nothing could be further from the truth.  I work with the site on a regular basis, especially in preparing filings on behalf of non-profit corporations.  It's very easily to navigate, has the most up-to-date information on anything you could ask about, and allows you to download and complete savable copies of any form or publication the IRS publishes.  I have no idea who designed this site, but whoever did so did a first-rate job.  And the IRS is about as complex and intimidating a bureaucracy as there is on the federal level.

On the other hand, there is the Web site for Everhome Mortgage.  I recently visited it to obtain a simple for for a client who is attempting to obtain relief from the full amount of a mortgage she is assuming in conjunction with a divorce.  A form.  That's it.  And it took following five separate links to simply get to the link for the form.  And, when I got there, I e-mailed it to my client and she discovered that the link doesn't work from an e-mail.  I finally ended up downloading it, scanning it and e-mailing it to her.  Okay, not exactly the biggest crisis I could have with a client.  But not exactly a tribute to whoever designed Everhome's Web site in the first place.  Then again, perhaps the point is to make it harder to obtain forgiveness; after all, that's money out of Everhome's well-stuffed pocket.

My scorecard here says:  public sector 1, private sector 0.  But if you disagree, check both sites out, and see if you think I'm wrong.  I'll be surprised if you honestly do.

And I emphasize the word "honestly."

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