Seriously, Guys...

We need to educate every ICT person in Indonesia about Usability and Design.

Background of my ranting:

I am glad that I have NPWP now, which made me a good citizen. The thing is, I don't know what to do with it. My friend said that I should fill SPT. What the heck is that? So, as his recomendation, I went to [PAJAK] to get to know what I should do.

There are 2 big flaws that I found about the website:

1. The website uses Flash and lots of images. WTF? Did they think all Indonesian citizen have enough bandwith? Even here in Jakarta we still have people with 14.4 Kbps modem. It uses javascript. Those people expecting all of Indonesian citizen have HD LCDs, quadcores CPUs, and many RAMs to waste? Heck, even here in UI we still have old Pentium up and running with happy IE4/5.
2. It doesn't show crutial information as the name of the website suggests: PAJAK/TAX. As a new tax payer, I don't know how to do and it doesn't have any FAQ about tax payer. [Heck, they don't teach me about paying taxes in school] Instead, the site provide a PPT (M$ Powerpoint) describing about registering tax and some Windoze based program. How to use the program? (I'm using GNU/Linux)
   
3. What to do? What should I do? Do I have a hint? Yest there was a text, but when I read about the text, well, I didn't. It was too much for me. What? Do you think I'm a lawyer or something?
   

There are serious studies and grow in interest about Usability and Design. That subject is now one of the hot subject. Take a look around! [GGL]

Okay, time to discuss.

Rant 1: Target Consideration
Please consider your target audience. It's not bad that you can design well. But, have you surveyed the majority of your target audience is living on a poor bandwith? The big flaw of [REC] is neglecting the fact that most of us still living in the good 'ol 14" CRT with poor RAMs.

Please, try to take a survey of your target audience first.

Rant 2: Compability Issue
What's with that lame PPT presentation? Some of the animation is cumbersome and annoying. Anyway, if you take a look around, there are serious movement among institution all around the globe to webalize their applications. So, why not do the same?

Do you think all of us use Windoze with the same setup? Do you provide support for the applications you provide?

Rant 3: Humanize Your Site Flow
Another big flaw is the language. I know that this is supposed to be an official site, but what we don't understand is, where is the valid information. The content is specialize to people who know about blabbing (yeah, I mean you, lawyers!) that it scares people away from understanding it. Furthermore, the formal language the site uses making the site cold and way too many information scares people. Hey, btw, did you know that Indonesian people is a verbal people that not so fond of reading?

Again, take a look around some of the good website, something like IBM site. [IBM] Let me highlight some of its credibility in case you don't notice:

1. It uses business language, but it doesn't create a cold image
   It still provide some prominent reasons of why people come to [IBM] as humanistic as possible such as: I want to {Learn} about, I want to {Shop}, I want to find out about technical issues to {Develop and Deploy} my client's application, etc.
   
2. It emphasis on info that majority visitors want to know.
   FYI, IBM is a specialized company that provide IT solutions through out the globe by itself or in cooperation with third party vendor and it is also one of the leader of IT industry. So, in its merit, IBM provide information for (potential) buyers, technical people, 3rd party vendor, and even students. IBM have tons of stories to tell, but it only emphasis on some of key points that making their image positive and strong.
   
3. It use simple design in mind: non-obtrusive and elegant.
   IBM uses Javascript and Flash, that's because its target audience are afford to do so. But, still it only uses 1 Flash and unobtrusive Javascript. How unobtrusive? Test it with Lynx and you'll see.

Please, consider the following question as a philosophy: Why do you create an information portal?

References:
[PAJAK] http://pajak.go.id/
[GGL] http://www.google.co.id/search?q=Usability+and+Design&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:id:official&client=firefox-a
[REC] Best View Using Firefox 2.x, Opera 9.x and Internet Explorer 7.x
[IBM] http://www.ibm.com/us/