FortySouth

On my WordPress dashboard is a draft post of a rant about official Kenya Government websites that I, almost without fail, find cause to update whenever I happen to visit these sites.

Save for a few diamonds in the ruff that present relevant and up-to-date content on a user-friendly, navigable and visually-appealing interface (e.g. CBK, KSMS, ICT Board, KNEC etc.), most of the sites that represent the online face of ministries and parastatals are sufferably navigable. Perhaps it’s a personal preference, but scrolling text and animated GIFs can be very distracting. This is where the AdBlock Plus and NoScript extensions for Firefox shine; they make it easy to block images, Flash and JavaScript in the browser.

So I was pleasantly surprised to note today that the Kenyan Ministry of Information and Communication revamped their site. The new design features a cleaner interface with simplified navigation and current news is prominently displayed; this in lieu of the previous congested landing page with inconsistent typography, symmetry and broken links .

Whether the “blog-like” format of the home page and site navigation exclusively from the header is appropriate for a site with as much content to offer as does this, is debatable; although it doesn’t lend itself any favors with complying with the Three-click rule best practice.

One big plus is the new forum section where threads can be started on any topic for discussion. If you’re lucky, the PS Bitange Ndemo just might respond as he (or his proxy) seems to be a regular visitor.

If you haven’t already, visit the site to find policy documents, draft bills, news and contribute to the discourse on all things ICT.

It’s about that time of the year again when reviews of the Best Of are carried out. Lifehacker has the rundown of the most popular and, most importantly, free apps for Windows PCs. Check it. You just might find that app you’ve always been looking for.