In summary, PDFs can be used as long at least one other accessible format is provided with all PDF documents.

Other advice include:

• First consider the needs of their users. Is the information to be presented best handled by a PDF?
• When creating accessible PDFs, work with properly structured source files
• Always tag PDF files
• Avoid scanned PDFs, or at least optimise them for accessibility (e.g. using Optical Character Recognition).
• Link to a list of PDF Readers instead of linking directly to PDF readers from agency websites.

Boy oh boy was I wrong. What should have been a quick and painless process turned out to be a case study for a bad user experience.

Having what I thought was a current and valid passport, I selected the Passport Applications menu item, then the Renew option. After following the form flow for a while, I got stuck on the login screen, was eventually locked out and then asked to contact the passport team (the number only works if you call during business hours). When I called the next day, I was told that I can’t renew my current passport as it has less than two years validity (thanks to a name change due to my marriage two years ago). Instead, I’ll have to go through a new passport application.

After going back and being a lot more through with my reading of the extraneous text on the passport website, I discovered that there’s actually a PDF that you have to download and read which contains important information (can you spot it in the image below?). I also discover that despite the page saying that you should use the renewal form if you have a current passport, you still need to find the relevant PDFs on the website, read the instructions in great detail and hope that you have the right form.

This was pretty annoying but I buckled down and tried to work my way through the online new passport application. The first page I get asks a series of questions (as per the following image). Note that the supplementary text for the third question “Do you want to renew your Australian passport?” doesn’t tell you about the less-than-two-years validity rule.

Once you start the form, there is no clear indication of the documentation you need to have to complete the form. As I start completing the form, I soon realise that there’s eleven steps I need to go through. Each step has to be completed before you can move to the next step (which is an absolute pain if you’re trying to work out what documents you need to have prepared BEFORE you get to that step).

The step that’s currently causing the most angst is the citizenship section. I have to prove that I’m an Australian citizen – either via an Australian Birth Certificate (which I don’t have as I’m born overseas) or an original Australian Citizenship Certificate (which I also don’t have as I’m on my parents’ citizenship certificate).

The Citizenship website tells me that I can apply for proof of citizenship, which is a 12 page PDF form, costs $55 (Australian dollars) and will take about 30 days. This is a problem – I leave for the US in less than 30 days.

I call Immigration who tells me that I have two choices – apply for my own citizenship certificate (which won’t arrive in time, unless I can prove that there’s a compassionate reason like death in the family) or use my parents’ original certificate (which is still located on the other side of the country).

The fact that I have a current and valid Australian passport, a Medicare card and the Citizenship Certificate number doesn’t matter. According to the new rules that came into effect on 1st October 2008:

From today, the Australian Passport Office will only accept the new passport applications forms which were introduced on 1 July 2008 to strengthen the identity management process that underpins the Australian passport issuing system.

The new forms better ensure the names included in replacement passports match those recorded on state and territory births, deaths and marriages registers or the Australian citizenship register.

I wonder how they thought I got my original passport?

So to fix up potentially erroneous processes from previous years, the Australian Citizens has to undergo quite a difficult process to apply for a passport. I’m still in the process of applying for a new passport. I’ve asked my parents to send their original certificate through registered mail so I can get it safely and on time. But funnily enough, I’m not the only person to be going through such a bad passport user experience.

Lessons learned?

For Government:

• Map out the entire user experience – the experience can be harder that you think and it’s not just limited to the web!
• Consider a better integration between passports.gov.au, locating an appropriate passport interview venue (some Australian Post offices) and the Immigration department (for proving your Citizenship if required)
• Rewrite your content so it makes sense!!!

For the Citizen:

• Give yourself ample time to renew or apply for a passport, especially if you need to prove your citizenship!

Fingers crossed that I can get everything sorted out in time for my November holiday…

I really enjoyed the strong sense of community spirit among the 70 (I think it was around 70?) participants. People were eager to chat and share experiences of managing their websites and providing services to their constituents. It was interesting to see the diverse range of roles – some of the participants managed the websites as a full time job, while others balanced the website management along with other duties.

There was a great line-up of speakers, including John Allsopp, Cameron Adams, Ben Buchanan, Brian Hardy, Lachlan Hardy, Matthew Hodgson, Tim Lucas, Russ Weakley… the list goes on :)

As the conference was a dual-track conference, here’s my attempt of one sentence summaries of the sessions I attended:

• John Allsopp – Opening Keynote Speaker: The real and the virtual – closing the circle – John gave an inspirational talk about how the web connects people and devices and the importance of context of use when designing services (rather than web pages).
• Robert Beerworth – Social Media and Online Marketing – Robert’s key messages included the importance of search and how it should drive decisions, and that planning/strategy is critical to a successful website.
• James Robertson – Open Source Web Content Management: are we asking the right questions? – James talked about the different types of open sourced and commercial CMS and that commercial or open source isn’t the question – rather it’s about matching a CMS to your specific business needs.
• Cameron Adams – Working with Design – Cam discussed how web design is about the integration of the look, behaviour and emotion, and provided some design tips to take away.
• Russ Weakley – Efficient, maintainable, modular CSS – Russ gave another great talk on writing efficient and maintainable CSS. What was new to me was the idea of the bridging CSS files which helps to create hack free CSS – very clever!
• Web Standards Panel – Russ, Brian and Kate talked about the NSW Style Guide (which seems to be quite the contentious issue among the conference participants, generating lots of discussion around whether they should be a common look and feel across council and shire websites), accessibility and record keeping requirements.
• Ben Buchanan – Steering the glacier: how does one person have an impact? – Ben gave a great talk about focussing on the things that you can change as well as the importance of coffee in building up and maintaining relationships.
• Matthew Crozier – Online Community Engagement – what are the benefits and how to manage the risks – Matthew talked about a case study which showed the benefits and risks of online consultation and some of the strategies used to successfully manage these consultations.
• Local-e Re-Design Project 2008 – Reem Abdelaty and Joanna Lewis took the audience through the user centred design process of redesigning of the Local-e templates.
• Matthew Hodgson – “The Intranet is dead! Long live the Intranet!” – Using a Doctor Who theme, Matt took the audience on a journey through time where we learned that people were the very first intranets, through to the evolution of intranets today and to the future.
• Lachlan Hardy – Closing Keynote Speaker: Local Government on the Open Web – Lachlan discussed various open web concepts, including web standards, open specifications (OpenID, MicroID, EAUT etc), and open architectures (API etc), and how this may be applied to local Government. I was particularly fascinated by the OmniTI URLs example – very cool!

Used with permission from Ben Buchanan

My co-worker (Adrian Newton) and I did a presentation titled Usability for Government: improving service delivery. We talked about usability, why it’s important, some of the user centred design techniques, and tips for people to take away.

I had a great time at the conference! Many thanks to Reem and Diana for putting together a great conference, and for the wonderful speaker’s gift (which now means I’m not an Apple virgin any more).

To check out what happened at the conference, view the twitter stream and flickr photos. Other presentations should be up on Slideshare over the next few days.