I had my first call tonight from a person not knowing what to do to go to the census site. No problem I thought. Then it became obvious that many people are going to have the same problem.
The letter states "Just follow the simple instructions below". The first instruction: "Go to census.abs.gov.au".
The person opens their browser on the search page as many people do. Typed in census.abs.gov.au and saw a list of sites. None were census.abs.gov.au.
Not so simple after all.
The instructions should have been more specific. Something along the lines, "In the address area of your browser type in www.census.abs.gov.au". Now of course some people don't even know they are using a browser and some people wouldn't know where the address area of the browser is.
The government has made assumptions there's a far greater understanding by the general population than a large segment of the population actually has. It is lucky those who don't know will be assisted by someone who does know. In effect the government has dumped the support role for their systems onto the IT literate amongst us.
Now the additional problem is the site is overloaded. It is not working. This will be causing a huge amount of grief for people. People who will be worried they'll be fined for not completing the census.
It really is a pity the government doesn't get things like this right. We saw the click-frenzy failures of the past for commercial organisations, but for the government to do this is almost beyond belief. It simply shouldn't happen.
Kelvin Eldridge
www.OnlineConnections.com.au
11:48 pm, 9 August 2016
Decided to try site using mobile. Click on button to complete census just goes to blank about: page. On the notebook you get the census page, then clicking on the button gives a message to try in 15 minutes.
The letter states "Just follow the simple instructions below". The first instruction: "Go to census.abs.gov.au".
The person opens their browser on the search page as many people do. Typed in census.abs.gov.au and saw a list of sites. None were census.abs.gov.au.
The instructions should have been more specific. Something along the lines, "In the address area of your browser type in www.census.abs.gov.au". Now of course some people don't even know they are using a browser and some people wouldn't know where the address area of the browser is.
The government has made assumptions there's a far greater understanding by the general population than a large segment of the population actually has. It is lucky those who don't know will be assisted by someone who does know. In effect the government has dumped the support role for their systems onto the IT literate amongst us.
Now the additional problem is the site is overloaded. It is not working. This will be causing a huge amount of grief for people. People who will be worried they'll be fined for not completing the census.
It really is a pity the government doesn't get things like this right. We saw the click-frenzy failures of the past for commercial organisations, but for the government to do this is almost beyond belief. It simply shouldn't happen.
Kelvin Eldridge
www.OnlineConnections.com.au
11:48 pm, 9 August 2016
Decided to try site using mobile. Click on button to complete census just goes to blank about: page. On the notebook you get the census page, then clicking on the button gives a message to try in 15 minutes.
Update: 10:19 am, 10 August 2016
I read this in today's online News site. "However the ABS took the “precaution of closing down the system to ensure the integrity of the data” just after 7.30pm."
What is bothering about this, is had the ABS put this or a similar notice on their site at 7:30 pm that the site was not available until further notice, the time wasted by millions of Australians could have been reduced or avoided. The lack of transparency and being upfront with clear information is a considerable concern.
Update: 14 August 2016
It should be a concern the census system capacity was 260 forms per second. That is 936,000 forms per hour. We were all told to fill in the form on census night. For most people that would mean between 7 pm and 11 pm on Tuesday. There would be a large peak sometime during this period, the submission would not be evenly spread. It would be expected there would be somewhere around 10 million people submitting the census, although not all online. It is conceivable the system capacity could be exceeded by two to three times the design. Capacity did reach 150 forms per second at 7:30 pm when the system was shut down. Around 2 million people had submitted their census by this time with quite a few submitting during the day and the previous day (not census night as we'd been told). At 936,000 forms per hour that would only allow for around 4 million forms during the 7 pm to 11 pm period. Far less than the 7 million plus expected for the census to break even. There is little wonder the census failed.
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