Singapore MOE vs. Taiwan MOE

One can only be amazed (or perhaps disgusted) at the differences between Taiwan’s Ministry of Education (MOE) website and Singapore’s.
While I could nitpick, Singapore’s MOE site gave me the information I needed quickly and clearly. It looks like it was built with a goal of actually helping people find the information they need.
Taiwan’s MOE is a confusing mess of political and organizational data of interest to only those who wrote it. Their English site is useful to no one. It’s the type of masturbatory exercise so prevalent in many government information dissemination efforts here.
If you believe that what and how an entity communicates is an indication of the organization itself, by using their websites which organization do you think has their shit together? Which do you trust?
The signal to noise ratio is so out of whack, it’s no wonder people try to circumvent the system. One could spend their whole life trying to find accurate data (or do as we do pick up the phone and ask directly).
These problems have little to do with the lack of knowledge or practice in usability, design, or simple customer advocacy. There is talent here. It’s politics, poor organizational management, and lack of vision that creates these black holes.


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