supersonic feet

On my daily browsing of the CSS galleries today, I clicked on a thumbnail for a site that looked like it had a nice, clean layout, not looking at the name of the site.

As the page loaded, it turned out to be the new website of Senator Edward M. Kennedy and rather nice it looks too. It’s not flashy, it just looks very clean and professional which is nice to see of an American politician when the outside world sees a lot of US politicians as brash and showy (I should point out that I have no idea whether this website actually reflects Sen. Kennedy’s personality as I live in the UK, but it’s the impression given from the website).

The site is even coded well, with a good tableless, CSS-based design. It also has some ‘constituent services’ (often termed eGov by the UK government websites) to provide services online to the senator’s constituency. They’re not earth-shattering offerings to be honest, but it’s at least nice to see a move in the direction of opening services up online. I was particularly amused by the form to request a congratulatory letter from the Senator if you’ve done something special or for a special occasion such as birthday or anniversary.

An idea of how good this website is for a politician can be gained by having a look at Kennedy’s fellow Massachusetts Democratic senator, John Kerry’s website. This a guy who ran for president not long ago and his website looks like it was made in 1997 (maybe it was?). The site doesn’t have valid code, has a table-based layout and send disabled users off to a text-only version of the site. At least they’ve made some effort for disabled users, but how about just making the one site accessible instead of segregating people?

So kudos to Sen. Kennedy for having a pretty smooth, accessible website. I’d go and look for an equivalent Republican senator’s site, but this post isn’t about political ideologies so I won’t bother.

After posting about how easy to use the EHIC (European Health Insurance Card) application form was, I’m pleased to report that the good experience didn’t end there.

I received my card a couple of days later and both Ken and my Dad have both had the same experience - my Dad even got his the next day!

On the one hand, it’s a sad reflection of the lack of faith we have in government institutions that we’re so shocked when something goes smoothly. On the other, it’s just nice to see something work so smoothly. The only complaint I could have is that the site that originally linked to the EHIC application website made it a little awkward to find the actual link to apply online, but from there on in it was a breeze.

Anyway, I’m EHIC‘d up and ready to go.