Memorandum from Andrew Hardie (October
2006)
1. In the past 18 months the advent of several
new Web technologies and techniques, loosely referred to as "Web
2.0", has revolutionised the delivery of information services
to users via fixed and mobile Web browsers and has the potential
to replace many traditional desktop applications and techniques.
2. Web 2.0 has, in little over a year, transformed
the way in which users interact with information via the Web in
dramatic and positive ways. Many of the services that have been
developed so far could either have direct application in the service
of Parliament or guide the development of future services. Reliance
on traditional desktop and server applications needs to be reconsidered
in the light of these new developments, which continue to evolve
at a remarkable pace.
3. If the UK Parliament is to have a modern,
efficient information system for Members, staff and citizens ("to
maximise its internal efficiency and external effectiveness"),
which is able to keep pace with rapid change and compare favourably
with the best offerings on the Web, the advent of Web 2.0 cannot
be ignored. Although it is not a panacea, Web 2.0 can and should
have a place in the Parliamentary information strategy.
CONTENTS
— Why does Web 2.0 matter?
— Putting it in the Parliamentary context
— The dilemmas of storage
INTRODUCTION
4. In the past 18 months the advent of several
new Web technologies and techniques, loosely referred to as "Web
2.0", has revolutionised the delivery of information services
to users via Web browsers and has the potential to replace many
traditional desktop applications and techniques. The even more
recent advent of Web 2.0 on mobile platforms is accelerating development
and innovation further.
5. Instead of large complex proprietary
applications and software suites installed on each PC, which can
be hard to configure and maintain, the new lightweight portable
Web-based services require only a Web browser with little or no
local configuration and generally run equally well on Windows,
Mac, Linux and (with some restrictions) on mobile platforms such
as PDAs and high-end mobile phones. Companies wanting to serve
many millions of users need to be able to engage the widest possible
audience.
6. Innovative new companies based on such
Web-based services, like Flickr, MySpace and YouTube, have proliferated,
gathering millions of users, and hundreds of millions of Dollars
of value, in a matter of months. These sites, like so many others
of the Web 2.0 generation, depend almost entirely on user-contributed
content for their success. Encouraging users to contribute regularly
requires appealing, easy to use interfaces.
7. Other sites, like Hi5, Bebo and Orkut,
have gathered large numbers of users by creating interactive online
communities. Here, users trade the effort expended in entering
personal information in return for higher quality matching with
potential friends, activity partners and "dates". Users
become "co-developers" of the sites.
8. It is important to note that none of
these sites provides training or a help desk. How to use the site
must be self-evident or intuitive; if not, the site will simply
be a commercial failure. The competition for "eye-balls",
ie users, has become intense and that competition is reflected
in the effort expended in creating high-quality interface design
and rich functionality. Even the well-established Internet players,
like Yahoo and Google, have had to respond to these new developments
and update their traditional offerings.
9. The rush to gather users to impress advertisers
and potential buyers alike has led to other companies, like Writely
and Zimbra, with web-based alternatives to many of the traditional
desktop applications, such as word processing, spreadsheets, databases,
project management and calendaring. Email has, of course, long
been available as a Web-based service, highly prized by people
on the move.
10. In short, the innovation initiative
is passing from the traditional creators of large software applications
with long release cycles to the provision of Web-based services
which can evolve rapidly because they do not have to rely on local
client software updates for functionality or revenue stream.
11. Web 2.0 is changing both the Web and
software business models very fast and many of the large traditional
software companies are scrambling to catch up with the new leading
edge.
WHAT IS
"WEB 2.0"
12. Whilst opinion as to what exactly constitutes
"Web 2.0" differs in some details, the following general
principles are fundamental:
12.1. The emphasis has shifted from software
programs (whether locally installed or on network servers) to
Web-based service provision—the concept of "software
as a service", instead of as a boxed product.
12.2. The software providing these services
is constantly evolving—some sites release new versions daily
or even hourly—and it is never "signed-off' and finished
in the traditional "product" sense; leading to the concept
of the "permanent beta".
12.3. New Web technologies, such as AJAX
(Advanced JavaScript and XHTML), have dramatically improved the
interactivity and responsiveness of the user-experience, making
possible intuitive interaction with complex service offerings
yet without the need for traditional user support (training, manuals,
etc). Techniques that were traditionally the preserve of desktop
applications, such as drag and drop or dynamic interaction, can
now be used in Web browsers.
12.4. New developments in browser rendering
technology, such as the new version of CSS (Cascading Style Sheets),
have considerably enhanced the visual appearance and ergonomics
of web-based applications.
12.5. The easier, better user interface brought
about by these technologies has made possible the extraordinary
success of Web sites fuelled by user-generated content. Sites
have to be attractive and easy to use if they are to encourage
the regular user participation on which they depend. Moreover,
the competition between sites for new features means each new
enhancement must be easily found and easy to use.
WHY DOES
WEB 2.0 MATTER?
13. The consequences of the arrival of the
Web 2.0 generation of services are:
13.1. Web 2.0 makes possible things that
previously either could not be done in the Web environment or
were so difficult to do or use as to be impractical. In other
words, it opens up a whole new area of possibilities that were
previously the sole preserve of desktop applications and which
can be accessed from multiple locations using just a Web browser.
13.2. Web 2.0 dramatically "raises the
bar" in terms of appearance and functionality, not just for
the dot-com companies offering competing web-based services but
for all organisations with Web sites. Sites without the new technologies
and techniques are rapidly starting to look and feel old-fashioned
or even obsolete. As a result, the cost of developing Web sites
that are appealing and engaging—and keeping them so—is
rising significantly. Compelling content was always a requirement
for competing Web sites seeking to attract and retain users. Compelling
interaction has become the new battleground.
13.3. Web-based services are developing far
more rapidly than desktop-based applications because they provide
a much faster and easier route to market than traditional software
distribution models; no application updates on the client devices
are required (except for occasional browser updates and security
fixes, which can be automated) and new versions can be deployed
virtually instantly.
13.4. Combining Web 2.0 with mobile devices
will accelerate the development of location based services, mobile
search and digital convergence. The device itself can become part
of the search, by providing location information.
13.5. Web 2.0 has coincided with the appearance
of "mashups", the dynamic integration of data from multiple
sources into a unified presentation. The use of the Google maps
service is a good example—someone in the USA took the published
crime figures for city districts and did a mashup with the Google
service to produce a map showing crime density. (Technically,
mashups are not strictly Web 2.0 but tend to get lumped into it
because they emerged at about the same time.)
13.6. In system design terms, the emphasis
shifts from applications and operating systems to information
and the users' interactions with it. This, in fact, should always
have been at the heart of good system architecture and design.
PUTTING IT
IN THE
PARLIAMENTARY CONTEXT
14. Parliaments are not like commercial
organisations, for all sorts of reasons. Web 2.0 may be transforming
commercial Web company activities and, more slowly, internal and
external corporate Web servers but how could it be applied usefully
in the specialised environment of the UK Parliament?
15. Consideration of this has to start with
the question, "What do Members want?" As the song in
that old Martini advert went, the answer surely is "Any time,
any place, anywhere". Members would like to access to all
their data and all the available services all the time, wherever
they are. That's one problem. Another problem arises when different
individual Members or groups of Members want something different
or when what they want is in only available as a proprietary,
platform dependent application installed on one PC in one location.
16. The provision of services to constituency
offices, Members' homes and Members on the move further complicates
the traditional approach to service provision. Remoting the entire
Parliamentary network has the benefit of largely keeping the same
services and look and feel, in the hope that this will simplify
training and support, but the VPN approach may be the right answer
to the wrong question. VPNs can be problematic, especially when
running across different network carriers and national boundaries.
The Web-at-large doesn't use VPNs. Where secure communication
is required, eg for online banking and making credit card payments,
HTTPS (a secure version of the standard Web protocol) is used
instead. This is a standard feature in all modern Web browsers.
17. Add in the problem of Party-provided
applications, local "spot-fix" and personal preference
software and the complexity and difficulty multiplies further.
Achieving it all is hard enough but supporting it is even harder.
The system becomes "brittle", ie easily broken, making
it very hard to support.
THE USER
SUPPORT ISSUE
18. There can never be enough support for
a system that is brittle by design. Providing more support staff
or improving the response time in call centres is fixing the wrong
problem. The real problem is why so many people are calling the
help desk. Zero-intervention should be the goal, not more nationwide
flying PICT-ets.
19. Users and IT departments can both be
their own worst enemy. IT departments usually think the answer
to management and support problems is tighter central control
of users, equipment and facilities and seek to solve the problem
by technical and administrative means. But, the more complex and
tightly "locked down" a system, the less flexible it
is, the harder (and riskier) it becomes to upgrade and the more
users look for ways to bypass its restrictions. Then, entrenched
"them and us" positions emerge, with each side thinking
that the other doesn't understand and is being deliberately difficult.
Eventually, powerful users will break the central stranglehold
and the cycle begins again.
20. Users also have to realise that every
special case they plead is an additional complexity and support
issue for the IT department. At a recent PITCOM meeting about
getting value for money in IT projects, the speaker forcefully
made the point that many Government IT projects failed because
Departments continued to over-specify their requirements, attempted
to automate outdated business processes and, generally, regarded
themselves as "special" so increasing costs unnecessarily
and failing to capitalise on the benefits of COTS (Commercial
Off-The-Shelf) products. The MOD, especially, has long struggled
with this issue.
21. Much technical innovation is now happening
in consumer, rather than business, markets—think graphics,
mobiles, digital convergence, web services. This will, inevitably,
lead to constant user pressure for more and better services. Flexible
service provision is how the dot-com "Fast Companies"
do this. From the 90-day projects of the dot-com boom, to the
"tiger team" one week projects of today, speed of response
and rollout is what characterises the successful players.
22. In the Parliamentary context, striking
a balance between lowest common denominator and highest individual
plea is always going to be difficult but must be tackled to arrive
at system specifications and service definitions that can actually
be implemented and supported. A useful guiding principle for both
sides can be compatibility not commonality. Commonality of equipment
and software configuration is hard to achieve and even harder
to maintain. The Web is the most successful example ever of the
principle of compatibility over commonality. If sites like Yahoo
and Google, with tens of millions of users, required each one
of those users to have a specific hardware and software configuration,
and had to maintain an asset register of that configuration, they
would cease to exist, buried under their own administrative burden.
It requires a shift in thinking from hardware and software to
thinking about information services.
THE DILEMMAS
OF STORAGE
23. Discussion of information inevitably
leads to the question of storage and, more importantly, information
management. Again, there are wider issues here than those usually
considered.
24. Storage is certainly now cheap, very
cheap (eg a one terabyte redundant disk, gigabit network storage
appliance, WiFi node and print server available in an IT supermarket
for 999 Euros). But, storage cost alone isn't the issue—managing,
finding and retrieving the information in the storage is the real
cost. Throwing more storage at the problem will not, alone, solve
the information management issues.
25. Speed and reliability are, of course,
fundamental requirements. If storage is not fast and demonstrably
reliable, users will replicate needlessly "just in case",
so exacerbating the problem and creating an escalating demand
for storage.
26. There are also hidden issues to do with
information availability. Having reliable mass storage is of no
use if the information cannot be found when needed or isn't in
the store in the first place. Data stored on individual PCs is
at risk; people are too busy or too lazy to make backups. Locally
installed applications may be faster but also are a single point
of failure—even if the data is replicated it is often inaccessible
if the application itself is not available because the PC has
a fault.
27. The Web 2.0 approach to provision of
office type services, like that for Web-based email, is to have
all the information stored on the provider's servers. A well-managed
data centre can achieve very high reliability and availability
standards (the goal being the "five nines", ie 99.999%
uptime), much higher than those of a desktop PC. Try to remember
the last time Yahoo or Google was not working or lost your information
and reflect on how many users they serve and how much data they
manage, especially in their picture and video databases.
28. However, this does leave the problem
of what to do when the information servers are inaccessible, due
to network faults or Internet traffic overload, or when offline
working is required (eg while travelling). However, very interesting
new Web 2.0 techniques are emerging from some companies. Zimbra
is trialling a two way sync of mail, calendar, contacts, and documents
between offline stores and online Web database. If these ideas
prove workable (there are others, like the Moxie rich text editor
which uses Dojo Storage, and there will, certainly, be many more),
they will go a long way towards making the Web 2.0 approach a
more comprehensive solution.
SUGGESTIONS
29. Obviously, without a detailed study
of the various user needs, current situation and legacy migration
issues, suggestions made here can be only in broad terms. However,
there are several areas where the use of Web 2.0 techniques could
be of use in devising a new approach to the provision of ICT services
to Members.
30. The basis for the new approach could
be to decide a core "de minimis" set of services, eg
email, Vote Bundle, Hansard, annunciator, relevant Library services,
and provide an integrated Web 2.0 environment (a "Parliamentarian's
Web Desktop") to access them both within the parliamentary
estate and at the other locations where Members and their staff
operate, including while on the move, using the secure Web protocol
(HTTPS).
31. A feature of browsers that often goes
un-noticed is their ability to work with data from different sources
and access several different services simultaneously. Having multiple
browser windows or tabs open at the same time allows user interaction
with different information services at the same time.
32. If all or, at least, most of the Members'
Parliamentary, Party and individual information service needs
could be delivered via Web interfaces, the need for complex, fragile
client software configurations would disappear, as would the dependence
on the specific machine on which that software was installed.
Failure of an individual PC would simply mean moving to another
and logging in again.
33. What benefits would this approach bring?
These could include:
33.1 It would provide the closest thing to
"Any time, any place, anywhere" since the only requirement
to use it would be a Web browser and an internet connection, whether
fixed or mobile.
33.2 It could be deployed in parallel with
some or all the existing traditional applications, so providing
an alternative access means.
33.3 Because no local software installation
is required, availability of the services depends only on access
control. If Internet connectivity and a browser are already available,
no site visit is required. The services can be made available
very quickly to large numbers of new users, eg following a General
Election. All that is needed is a means of delivering the necessary
logins, passwords and (when necessary) access tokens.
33.4 Similarly, denial of the services also
depends only on access control. Removal of access to services,
eg at Dissolution, can be achieved quickly. If the local data
replication technique, described above, or other "information
only" access mechanisms are implemented, the denial of service
could still leave access to and download of all of the Member's
information created up to the point of the Dissolution.
33.5 New features can be added quickly. "Current"
and "Next release" and, even, "fallback" versions
can all exist in parallel.
33.6 A Web 2.0 approach makes it easier (but
still not easy) to deliver the services to mobile devices, as
only a Web browser (eg Opera Mobile or Mini) is required, but
the physical issues, of course, remain.
33.7 If only a Web browser is required, the
issue of software licence compliance is reduced to the operating
system and the browser only. If Linux is used, there is no licence
compliance requirement at all.
33.8 The Web Desktop could be made the only
form of access to be supported outside the Parliamentary Estate,
so considerably simplifying the provision of remote support.
33.9 Because customisation and personalisation
are easy in a Web environment, different versions of the system
could be offered to suit the varying needs of Members and staff.
Furthermore, individual users could adjust the system to suit
their needs for the tasks they perform most.
34. As when the Web first appeared, it is
difficult to convey in writing alone how Web 2.0 might work and
look to those who haven't seen or used it. It is, perhaps, even
harder to imagine how it might work in the specialised environment
of the UK Parliament. A demonstrator project of the "Parliamentarians
Web Desktop" would greatly assist informed debate and decisions
about the use of Web 2.0 in future developments. Of course, being
Web 2.0, it could be developed quickly, updated regularly and
all done so at relatively low cost, compared to traditional enterprise-scale
solutions.
CONCLUSIONS
35. Web 2.0 has, in little over a year,
transformed the way in which users interact with information via
the Web in dramatic and positive ways. Many of the services that
have been developed so far could either have direct application
in the service of Parliament or guide the development of services.
Reliance on traditional applications needs to be reconsidered
in the light of these developments, which continue to evolve at
a remarkable pace.
36. Many of these new Web 2.0 developments
could be employed to create a Web based system providing access
to the main Parliamentary ICT services and provide facilities
equivalent to those traditionally provided by local desktop applications,
such as word processing. In time, techniques will probably emerge
that would allow all services to be provided (or, at least, accessed)
in this way.
37. If Parliament is to have a modern, efficient
information system for Members, staff and citizens ("to
maximise its internal efficiency and external effectiveness"),
which is able to keep pace with rapid change and compare favourably
with the best offerings on the Web, the advent of Web 2.0 cannot
be ignored. Although it is not a panacea, Web 2.0 can and should
have a place in the future Parliamentary information strategy.
NOTES
— This paper represents solely the
author's views; not those of anyone in Parliament or the views
of any third party.
— To aid clarity and succinct presentation,
some technical simplifications have been made.
— This paper has concentrated on the
provision of ICT services to Members but the use of Web 2.0 techniques
are also applicable to Parliamentary Staff and, especially, to
improving the "citizen-facing" information services,
ie the parliament.uk Web site.
— It is not the intention of this paper
to suggest that Web 2.0 techniques can be used to meet all of
Members' ICT requirements now but rather to challenge the thinking
that desktop applications are the only way to do it and promote
a more flexible approach, to which Web 2.0 is well-suited.
— The issues of security have been
largely left to one side so as to allow the paper to concentrate
on the key information issues. Security is, of course, a very
important issue in the parliamentary context but there may be
different ways of looking at the problem than a single sign-on
to everything. (A discussion of the relative security merits of
VPNs and HTTPS is outside the scope of this paper but, suffice
it to say, HTTPS is much easier to deploy and manage since it
is built into all Web browsers by default). A Web 2.0 approach
could allow different granularities of access, depending on location
and device, ie context. Instead of speaking about identity in
context it may be helpful to turn this around and look on context
as being part of your identity in any given instance. Your identity
for a particular task, transaction or need, at a particular time
and, maybe, in a particular place is therefore a combination of
personal ID data and the data about these contexts. (This is explored
in more detail in the author's paper Chips or Mash? Composite
Identity in Context prepared for the EURIM Personal Identity group,
in June 2006)
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