If you believe accessibility design expert Joe Clark, there’s a better than even chance that the next iteration of the TTC website will be shit. Maybe not quite as shit as the current website, which has looked like cat puke for the better part of a decade now, but the glitzy, open-standards website you’re imagining in your head? Could be the stuff of dreams, if you follow the TTC’s Request for Proposals to the letter.
Clark’s ruffled many a feather in his time; he makes no bones when he thinks you’ve done something stupid, and in his eyes a lot of designers do some colossally stupid things. But the man knows his stuff and even when he goes overboard with the criticisms (like perhaps he does a bit here) there’s always a kernel of truth to his words—oftentimes a very large one. So there’s no reason not to believe what Clark’s saying about the request tenders (though you’d have to buy the tenders yourself to read the document and form your own opinions—and you probably wouldn’t do that unless you were really interested in winning the contract).
Are we in trouble then? Maybe, perhaps, possibly not: many of Clark’s criticisms stem from the same problem, namely that the TTC doesn’t appear to have much of a clue when it comes to web technologies. I suppose one glance at the current site could tell you that much, but some details of the two RFPs are genuinely scary. For example, the fact the TTC uses Windows/IE6 on all their systems? Well, okay, I can understand that—IE6, for better or for worse, is still a large chunk of the browser market, even if everyone detests it more than they detested Netscape 4. But requesting your site be viewable in Internet Explorer 5? Asking the contract winner to host the public beta site? (11.4 million people visited the TTC site in 2006. Enjoy your bandwidth bill!) Requiring the trip planner output to be compatible with Ventura Publisher? Including a 3.5-inch floppy disk with the RFP documents? Come on, guys, where did you even find a floppy drive to make those disks?
There are two possibilities here: either the TTC is woefully behind the times, or else we’ve dug up the original RFP for the TTC’s current site. If it’s the former, the developers who win the contract will have a tough road ahead. Hopefully it’s the latter.
(Oh, and hey, obligatory mention of how the TTC’s operating budget has been slashed for the rest of the year and possibly for all of next year. Note to City of Toronto: no one will visit your shiny new TTC site if people can’t use the TTC no more.)
Now, where exactly did I go overboard?
Comment by Joe Clark — August 17, 2007 @ 4:31 pm
The Windows/IE6 thing, for one. As much as I would love to dump every single computer using IE6 into the ocean, it just ain’t going to happen. I understand the thrust of the argument—”the TTC is so behind the times they think IE6 is the web browser of choice in the office!”—but so long as it continues to hold significant market share, you’re going to have to deal with IE6. In that sense, I don’t necessarily see a problem with IE6 being the predominant browser ecosystem at the TTC versus Firefox, since the prospective developer is going to have to code for it anyways.
When I said “overboard,” I had in my mind the dust-up between you and Matthew Blackett over at Spacing regarding the Transit City map put out for public consumption. Don’t get me wrong, I found your criticisms of the map fine—though of course I’d say that, because you’re the accessibility expert, not I—but the discussion on the Spacing blog seemed more aggressive than it had to be.
But that’s more of a personality trait, versus something I could say about your actual criticisms. So in retrospect I’d probably phrase that differently.
Comment by Wesley — August 17, 2007 @ 6:18 pm
Windows + IE6 is the most impoverished browsing platform. The faster we get people off that dinosaur, the easier it is to make real Web sites. And I’m the one who gets attacked on Spacing, not vice-versa.
Comment by Joe Clark — August 17, 2007 @ 9:53 pm
“or else we’ve dug up the original RFP for the TTC’s current site.”
Funny stuff.
“The faster we get people off that dinosaur, the easier it is to make real Web sites.”
Um, er, if they’re leaving that dinosaur for IE7, god save us all.
Comment by Phillip Smith — August 21, 2007 @ 8:38 pm