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Written by: Commentary Editing Room
2021-07-05 17:15
The last update date: 2021-07-05 17:15
The government electronic consumer vouchers program started to register for "Stopping off" on the first day of Sunday (4th). The public complained that there would be long queues to apply for using the "Smart Convenience" application. Even if the "Smart Convenience" application is not used, the verification process is complicated, especially The handicapped is important.
The Office of the Government Chief Information Officer in charge of the registration system quickly corrected some of the problems, which is worthy of recognition, but most of the mistakes should be detected before the system is launched, and "Smart Convenience" even missed the opportunity to promote. The OGCIO should learn from the lesson and avoid repeating the same mistakes in the future. .
The dissatisfaction of the public mainly involves two areas.
First of all, with the "Smart Convenience" registration, you have to wait for more than two hours to enter at any time, and there are more than 600,000 people in the peak period.
The reason for the abnormality is that the number of users is over 530,000, and the number of waiting should not exceed the number of users. Even if there are 200,000 or 300,000, it is unreasonable.
The e-voucher program began to accept registration on July 4, and some netizens criticized the registration process as complicated as an exam.
(Profile picture)
Missed the opportunity to promote "Smart Convenience"
Using "Smart Convenience" when registering consumer vouchers is intended to reduce the amount of data input, and you can directly select payment tools after authenticating the user's identity.
On Monday (5th), Wang Xueling, director of the Budget and Tax Policy Group of the Financial Secretary’s Office, pointed out that many people who had not registered for "Smart Convenience" also came in. Some of them registered immediately and the system capacity was overloaded.
After the information was switched over on the homepage button order on Sunday afternoon, the waiting queue was relieved.
The Information Office did not anticipate that non-users would flock to the "Smart Convenience" system. It may not be the department's fault, but this reflects that the department did not expect to use registered electronic consumer coupons to promote "Smart Convenience" and expand its system capacity in advance.
Although the number of "Smart Convenience" users has risen from 70,000 at the end of February, with the addition of functions such as vaccination records, the total number is still less than 10% of the local population.
Wang Xueling announced that as of 8 a.m. on Monday, among the 2.38 million registered citizens, more than 90% used non-"smart and convenient" channels.
In fact, "Smart Convenience" has 40,000 new users in a single day on Sunday, which is ten times more than usual.
If the capacity of the system is larger, more Hong Kong people have already registered on Sunday to enjoy the services of digital identity authentication, digital signature and convenient form filling in advance.
Take a step back and say that even if the government cannot take the opportunity to promote "Smart Convenience" due to insufficient system capacity, then the webpage should have instructions to divert traffic, and only registered users can enter the "Smart Convenience" system to prevent non-users from entering the system by mistake. .
Accessibility does not match the name
Second, the registration and verification process is too great for disadvantaged groups, especially the elderly and the visually impaired.
The consumer voucher registration platform uses the reCAPTCHA program to prevent people from using computer programs to access the website, but many elderly people complain about poor eyesight and it is difficult to follow the instructions on the web page to click on the correct pattern. The visually impaired people say that the 30-minute registration time is too short and the screen reading software continues Read the countdown time, voice verification only has English options, etc., self-registration failed several times, and you should ask someone for help.
The Hong Kong Association for the Blind stated that when a visually impaired person chooses to register with non-intelligent convenience, the voice function of google recaptcha is read in English during verification, so that visually impaired persons who do not understand English cannot complete this step.
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The data office must consider network security. It is understandable to set up a security checkpoint. The verification function is provided by Google and not entirely controlled by the government.
However, why does the department claim that the website has been tested and meets accessibility standards and guidelines, but the registration process still stumps many people?
Some organizations for the visually impaired estimated that the web page test did not find relevant groups for actual testing.
Although the relevant departments have solved the problem of the countdown time and said that they will discuss whether they can reduce some of the verification steps and find Cantonese verification tools. The response is quick, but the ideal is that the pre-testing of the registration website is sufficient to make all groups feel. Go to the government to understand their needs.
Although the government has updated the design of government web pages in recent years, and the apps are more convenient to browse than before, and "Smart Convenience" is the government's main project to establish digital personal identity and promote smart cities. However, the registration of electronic consumer vouchers still exposes low-level errors and makes citizens stay Bad user experience.
The OGCIO, which is leading the digital transformation of the government, must learn lessons, fix the remaining problems as soon as possible, and conduct sufficient tests on future projects to restore the public's confidence in digitalization.
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