Information Technology Reference
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facilities, or disabled access to local attractions). While the searches re-
turned 'hits' in about 50% of the sampled sites, often the information that
was found was not relevant or sufficient to answer the query. For example,
in many cases the search brought up internal council documents (e.g. min-
utes of meetings) where reference might be made to the council's expendi-
ture on play facilities, rather than describing the facilities themselves or
their locations. Furthermore, the annual Socitm surveys reveal that a sig-
nificant proportion of local authority websites are not easy to use or fully
accessible to citizens.
2.2.4 Mobile Phones
Mobile phone companies have invested billions of pounds in developing
new 3G services which allow customers to access the Internet and all its
benefits from their mobile phones. So far, however, the general public
have not rushed to adopt this new technology. Sales have been disappoint-
ing, and indeed there is evidence of a degree of 'backlash' in the market
against the complex range of features which many mobile phones now of-
fer. Some companies have recognized that some customers at least want a
phone which is very easy to use simply as a phone, rather than as a camera,
games console, music player etc. They have also recognized the difficul-
ties that some users (in particular older people, who are under-represented
in the mobile phone market) experience with small buttons and small
screens. Consequently some companies are now making a virtue of pro-
ducing simple, easy to use phones with fewer functions, large buttons and
large screens.
2.3 Vision versus Reality
Four decades on from Sackman's predictions (1967), where is the freedom
and fulfillment we were promised in place of human drudgery? Instead of
freedom from drudgery, new forms of techno-drudgery have evolved.
Thus, for example, a simple visit to the bank to raise a query has been
replaced by the mind-numbing tedium and error-prone frustration of tele-
phone banking: entering passwords, remembering how to negotiate secu-
rity checks, and entering 16 digit account numbers. If you succeed in
avoiding all the built-in traps in this process then you may have the privi-
lege of speaking to a human being. Your communication problems may
not end here however. The capabilities of modern technology may mean
that the person you are speaking to is in a call centre on the other side of
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