U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, that part of the government responsible for preventing people from immigrating to the U.S., rolled out a redesigned Web site Wednesday. And the new site sucks.
The site, which took over a year for Merlin International to build for the agency, looks similar to the newly redesigned Department of Homeland Security Web site, which the department rolled out two weeks ago, and which also sucks, but for somewhat different reasons.
Before I get into taking the site apart, let’s hear what the government bureaucrats responsible for this waste of money have to say for themselves.
“With the launch of the new Web Portal, visitors will find the in-demand information they need within a sleek, modern framework,” said USCIS director Emilio Gonzalez. “You’re going to like the updated Web Portal, it’s a giant step forward for our agency and a helpful new tool for our applicants.”
Let’s just see about that.
A brief technical review of the new USCIS Web site shows numerous problems with the site which will cause problems for Web users, both now and in the future.
The first thing I looked at was under the hood, to see if the site adhered to various Web standards. And I was quite surprised to find that the whole site was laid out using tables, a 1990′s era practice, instead of the more modern Cascading Style Sheets. The new DHS Web site at least came into the 21st century in that respect; it uses CSS.
The new site also changed all of its URLs (page addresses) and of course the old ones are now broken. DHS learned about this two weeks ago after a large outcry from annoyed webmasters and reluctantly agreed to redirect some of the old URLs after it rolled out its new Web site. The problem at the USCIS site is the new URLs themselves suck. They’re horribly long and contain nothing but complete garbage. As a webmaster they’re so bad I don’t even want to link to them. To be fair, a few of the URLs, such as for various PDF files, seem to be okay.
And then there’s searching for information on the site.
“The new site is easier to navigate, visitors can use the built-in search engine to easily locate needed information and can find answers to their immigration questions through the interactive ‘How Do I…?’ page,” says a USCIS news release. (PDF)
So I ran a couple of searches. They seemed to bring up the right information, but the page said “Displaying results 1-8″ and I only saw five results. Then I realized the search results page was in a frame! This made navigation much more difficult.
Then there’s the little issue of keeping people up to date. USCIS’ idea of how to do this is apparently by using e-mail. “USCIS is partnering with a commercial provider to automatically track changes to the website and send out e-mail alerts to subscribers,” according to a USCIS fact sheet. (PDF) I remember signing up for such services in 1995. While e-mail notification is still quite useful for people with old computers, the 21st century way of notifying people of site updates is through Really Simple Syndication (RSS). A few government agencies have started using RSS, but notably, not DHS or its agencies (except FEMA, but they still think of themselves as separate from DHS).
Not only was this site redesign a waste of money, I suspect that USCIS got ripped off, and that means you, the taxpayer, got ripped off. That same fact sheet also says with a straight face, “This new design and architecture was based on the latest research on how people use websites and find information in the most effective way possible.” I have no doubt that that’s what the contractor said, but I just don’t see it.
All in all, the visual refresh is nice, even if poorly executed, though I suspect most of the 135,000 daily users that USCIS claims are going to leave the site more confused than when they arrived. After all, it turns out, the process of immigrating to the U.S. is arduous and Byzantine, and for people from some countries, virtually impossible. It desperately needs to be simplified. A new Web site can’t do that; it needs an act of Congress.
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Olga
Nov 03, 2006
This headline is hilarious….couldn’t stop laughing because you’re so
right! The only reason why I log on is to check ‘case status’….I
input case/receipt number and site takes me to the old, original page as the “old”
site. What I’d like to see an improvement on is case processing!!! my
case has been “pending” for years…now that’s where you need some
improvement…I could care less about what USCIS website looks like…..
Olga
Nov 03, 2006
This headline is hilarious….couldn’t stop laughing because you’re so
right! The only reason why I log on is to check ‘case status’….I
input case/receipt number and site takes me to the old, original page as the “old”
old site. What I’d like to see an improvement on is case processing!!! my
case has been “pending” for years…now that’s where you need some
improvement…I could care less about what USCIS website looks like…..
destiny
Nov 03, 2006
lol – u r one of the most hillarious and realistic person I have read from !
Q
Nov 03, 2006
I could have designed a better site using frontage.
Q
Nov 03, 2006
using FrontPage****
jed
Nov 04, 2006
Well, where is the link to the site?
USCIS employee
Nov 16, 2006
OMG – please PLEASE send comments to the webmaster on the “new” site.
I bombard them almost daily. If you are an intended immigrant – good
luck finding the info. If you are other then a family-based
adjustment – good luck. If you are trying to get your citizenship -
good luck.
If you need real help please come into or call or email the offices.
We – the workers – are very ashamed of this site.
Michael Hampton
Nov 16, 2006
I’m fairly sure that the webmaster in question is well aware of what I think.
MS
Nov 29, 2006
I’m an Immigration Paralegal who unfortunately has to use the USCIS website on almost a daily basis.
I have to tell you as some who uses the site extensively, you are wrong when you say the new website “sucks”.
Actually, it “REALLY SUCKS BIG TIME”.
The search feature is worst than before, the civil surgeon locator is much less useful than before, it just generally sucks overall. It makes sense though. A really sucky website for a really sucky agency.
J.
Dec 27, 2006
We have A biger problem here. 95% of the USCIS web site users are immigrants. And the reality is who cares what they think of so called “state of the art web site”.
spring
Dec 27, 2006
I used this web site a lot whenever I need to find information for my family and friends on immigration. However, after the new web site rolled out, I couldn’t find any information at all. Most of the pages are either blank or down. The How do I… page that people talked about can’t be found any where. The search engine doesn’t work. And, the FAQ has nothing in it. This web site is so so so so SUCK, and what a waste of money to roll out the new site.
MB
Jan 02, 2007
MS wrote about the new Civil Surgeons Locator. I had book marked the old one and it is no longer available. I did a search for “Civil Surgeons Locator” and could not find it. Could you post the URL of the new locator? Anything would be better than nothing.
JP
May 30, 2007
Yes Our Immigration system SUCKS, along with the rest of Government…….They just can’t seem to get it right…..Too many former lawers in Government I suspect this is maybe the problem.
Dmitriy
Jun 06, 2007
The entire website along with the GOVt is nothing but a bunch of rubbish! How can you rely on the Senate and the stupid USCIS to ever get anything done? It takes years for a paper to freaking make it from L.A. to N.Y., let alone processing any cases. May the they (USCIS) all burn in hell along with their creators
Jim Stevens
Mar 04, 2008
There’s a nice and new Immigration web site that I just stumbled upon. It looks nice and it’s not like the government web sites.
It’s called
Jim Stevens
Mar 04, 2008
sorry, I forgot to add the link: