Fw: [webwatch] NY Times: White House E-Mail System Becomes Less User-Friendly

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Jennifer Sutton" <jensutton@earthlink.net>
To: "webwatch" <webwatch@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Friday, July 18, 2003 3:23 PM
Subject: [webwatch] NY Times: White House E-Mail System Becomes Less
User-Friendly


Hi all:

I thought some of you might have time and/or interest in checking this new
email system out for accessibility.  I don't have time at the moment to
navigate through, apparently, nine pages.
Best,
Jennifer


http://www.nytimes.com/2003/07/18/technology/18MAIL.html?hp
White House E-Mail System Becomes Less User-Friendly
By JOHN MARKOFF
Do you want to send an e-mail message to the White House?
Good luck.
In the past, to tell President Bush — or at least those assigned to read
his mail
— what was on your mind it was necessary only to sit down at a personal
computer
connected to the Internet and dash off a note to president@whitehouse.gov.
But this week, Tom Matzzie, an online organizer with the A.F.L.-C.I.O.,
discovered
that communicating with the White House had become a bit more daunting.
When Mr.
Matzzie sent an e-mail protest against a Bush administration policy, the
message
was bounced back with an automated reply, saying he had to send it again in
a new
way.
Under a system deployed on the White House Web site for the first time last
week,
those who want to send a message to President Bush must now navigate as
many as nine
Web pages and fill out a detailed form that starts by asking whether the
message
sender supports White House policy or differs with it.
The White House says the new e-mail system, at www.whitehouse .gov/webmail,
is an
effort to be more responsive to the public and offer the administration
"real time"
access to citizen comments.
Completing a message to the president also requires choosing a subject from
the provided
list, then entering a full name, organization, address and e-mail address.
Once the
message is sent, the writer must wait for an automated response to the
e-mail address
listed, asking whether the addressee intended to send the message. The
message is
delivered to the White House only after the person using that e-mail
address confirms
it.
Jimmy Orr, a White House spokesman, described the system as an
"enhancement" intended
to improve communications. He called it a "work in progress," and advised
members
of the public who had sensitive or personal matters to bring up with
President Bush
to use traditional methods of communications, like a letter on paper, a fax
or a
phone call.
He said the White House, which gets about 15,000 electronic messages each
day, had
designed the new system during the last nine months in partnership with a
private
firm that he would not identify.
[snip]



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Received on Friday, 18 July 2003 15:30:24 UTC