MSP/MP Web Sites - A Survey

This survey was carried out during week-ending 20/01/2000.

The URLs were culled from the Scottish Parliament and Westminster websites. Given the fluid nature of this technology there is obviously a chance that this survey is already out of date with new websites appearing and old ones being updated.

Marking Policy

Information

Marks out of 10. We were looking for a combination of the following:

Diary
Date and location of next surgery
Information on current issues being pursued by the MSP/MP
Contact details
Clickable email links

Layout

Marks out of 10. We were looking for a clearly laid out, professional-looking site with easy to follow navigation. Marks were deducted for click-through pages and large graphics, especially if the large graphic is a photo of the MSP/MP.

Accessibility

Marks out of 10. We were looking for sites which were accessible to people not using the latest technology or people with visual impairments. Marks were deducted for use of the following:

Text supplied as image files - especially if these didn't have alt tags
Use of framesets
Small fonts
Poor contrast
Use of plug-ins such as Flash, Shockwave etc.

Compliance

A sample page from each site was passed through the validator to check whether the html was valid.

Comments

If there is anything special about a site (good or bad!) we have made comments at the end of the document. Access them by clicking on yes in the Comments column of the table.

Go to the data.

Observations

Overall, the standard of the sites was pretty low. The following sites are worth a look as reasonably good examples: