Australia Spent $62 Million To Update Its Weather Web Site and Made It Worse (bbc.com)
- Reference: 0180225907
- News link: https://slashdot.org/story/25/11/27/2013252/australia-spent-62-million-to-update-its-weather-web-site-and-made-it-worse
- Source link: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c2k4dy15nqqo
> Australia last updated their weather site a decade ago. In October, during one of the hottest days of the year, the Bureau of Meteorology (BOM) revealed its new web site and was immediately castigated for doing so. Complaints ranged from a confusing layout to not being able to find information. Farmers were particularly incensed when they found out they could no longer input GPS coordinates to find forecasts for a specific location. When it was revealed the cost of this update was A$96.5 million ($62.3 million), [2]20 times the original cost estimate , the temperature got even hotter.
>
> With more than 2.6 billion views a year, Bom tried to explain that the site's refresh -- prompted by a major cybersecurity breach in 2015 -- was aimed at improving stability, security and accessibility. It did little to satisfy the public. Some frustrated users turned to humour: "As much as I love a good game of hide and seek, can you tell us where you're hiding synoptic charts or drop some clues?"
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> Malcolm Taylor, an agronomist in Victoria, told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) that the redesign was a complete disaster. "I'm the person who needs it and it's not giving me the information I need," the plant and soil scientist said. As psychologist and neuroscientist Joel Pearson put it, "First you violate expectations by making something worse, then you compound the injury by revealing the violation was both expensive and avoidable. It's the government IT project equivalent of ordering a renovation, discovering the contractor has made your house less functional, and then learning they charged you for a mansion."
[1] https://slashdot.org/~quonset
[2] https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c2k4dy15nqqo
Oracle must be somehow (Score:1)
...involved
It's called corruption (Score:1)
Australia isn't immune from graft and corruption
Re: (Score:2)
This is precisely what I assume as well. How does something run 20x over budget...
Sounds like California's high speed train to no where. I'm sure it's making someone rich and that someone is almost certainly well connected.
Re: (Score:2)
Australia was born as a prison colony from English criminals so crime is in their blood
How? (Score:2)
I genuinely don't understand the sheer cost of it. For that sort of money I'd make a damn good website!
Re: (Score:3)
Well, you would try. The committee overseeing the design would probably thwart your every attempt.
Re: How? (Score:2)
Would have to be a hell of a lot of thwarting to cost 63m. It's just wasteful.
Re: (Score:2)
Heck, I'd do it for half that.
Re: (Score:2)
For that sort of wasteful spending I'd make an intentionally bad website that is sure to require additional funding and more billable hours just to bring it back to how it already was. Doing a good job within a reasonable agreed-upon budget is the worst possible way to make money as a consultant.
In ur radar, hacking ur storm cloudz (Score:4, Interesting)
It's nuts. The muppet in the hot seat, Bureau CEO Stuart Minchin, cited switching from HTTP to HTTPS as one of the main points during one of the regular grillings he has been getting from the media over the past few weeks, because apparently the data of Australians was on the line. On a website which requires precisely zero PII, or even general information (short of location) to use. Unless a giant infrastructure also went ahead in the background (like, from the feed horns on the radar back) it makes no sense if you're not living in the pork barrel yourself. If that did in fact happen, they need to fire whoever is in charge of their PR.
Meanwhile, just for shits and giggles, at least three consultancy firms have come out with their own versions of the front end which are objectively better in all regards than this new piece of junk, just to demonstrate how hard web dev isn't.
Gotta justify your budget somehow I guess.
I feel that appropriate vetting didn't happen. (Score:2)
On a related note, I'll redo their website for 20 million. They can contact me via comments below.
There is a word for that (Score:1)
The word to describe that problem just eludes me at the moment
Re: There is a word for that (Score:2)
"Throughing", also known as "feeding at the public through".