4 ms·

I am also starting to like the french .gouv.fr sites. They are slowly becoming modern. It is just our love of PDF that is holding us back (really?, PDFs that a

I am also starting to like the french .gouv.fr sites. They are slowly becoming modern. It is just our love of PDF that is holding us back (really?, PDFs that are fillable on a computer but no web forms to avoid the save & send by email? (or print))

mbesto 5y ago
> They are slowly becoming modern. It doesn't even need to be modern. Just usable.
mschuster91 5y ago
PDFs are accessible: a person distrusting computer transmission or without a computer can print out the form and send it via postal service. Also, you can save a filled out PDF (or copy a paper) to have a copy of what you submitted in your records, something that is impossible to do with most webform solutions.
- BrandoElFollito 5y ago
  > PDFs are accessible: a person distrusting computer transmission or without a computer can print out the form and send it via postal service. Yes, this is very useful when you do not have or want to use a computer. But if you fill in a PDF form on a computer, better go for the web app whihc will be easier to read and has a higher chance to actually work (the govt PDF will always have that one weird field that cannot be filled). > Also, you can save a filled out PDF (or copy a paper) to have a copy of what you submitted in your records, something that is impossible to do with most webform solutions. It would be enough for the web form to send you a confirmation, making it also an acknowledgement of your request. We already have this for taxes for instance.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- jakub_g 5y ago
  You could design HTML website in the same way, to be printable (although getting pixel perfect A4 format is tricky with HTML) Meanwhile, PDFs internally can be as accessible as JPEG in some cases; difficult for screen readers because it's optimized for screen display and printing. Sometimes PDF are not even searchable, you literally have vector glyphs and not "letters" inside. https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/open-standards-for-government/viewing-government-documents https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/open-standards-fo... Although PDFs are of course nice if you want to download it and save somewhere as a user because it's guaranteed to work and 1 file has everything. Downloaded HTML might have all kind of weird issues if it was constructed with fancy "modern" techniques. Again, proper server-rendered plain HTML+CSS for the win, perhaps with everything inlined if form is expected to be saved on disk.
  - pessimizer 5y ago
    > You could design HTML website in the same way, to be printable (although getting pixel perfect A4 format is tricky with HTML) But you can also get away with not doing it, so it will not be done.
  - BrandoElFollito 5y ago
    You would not need to have a true paper form. If anything really needs to be printed, it is a QR code with some basic information pointing to the online information on the gov site. This is how covid vaccine status is handled today and it works great.
brnt 5y ago
Although the French fondness for printable documents can be very annoying (it can be a lot of work, all that printing and scanning!), it is nice that it makes building your own archive simple. I now live in the NL, and while digitalisation here is advanced and generally not much work, I find it hard to document communication with the government (or business) consistently. Dutch folk are so weary of paperwork that asking for a copy for your own administration (and this has benefitted me countless times so I'm not quitting that habit) usually gets you surprised and/or annoyed frowns.
- mytailorisrich 5y ago
  Really, it's the French administration's fondness for paperwork. During the Covid lockdowns people were allowed to go out for a number of specific reasons, like in most countries. Of course the French administration decided that this required people to fill a specific form to select the reason, to sign the form (along with name, date and place of birth, address, date of time person left home), and to carry it with them in case police stopped them... After some time they did deploy an electronic version (on smartphones, but that's still a form) but it's the very idea of doing something like that that is symptomatic of the mindset.
  - brnt 5y ago
    > Really, it's the French administration's fondness for paperwork. French business isn't any different in my experience.
  - chrisseaton 5y ago
    Where does this regressive mindset come from do you think?
  - oever 5y ago
    So people carried as many filled in forms as there were reasons on the form?
    - donatzsky 5y ago

mbesto 5y ago

> They are slowly becoming modern. It doesn't even need to be modern. Just usable.

mschuster91 5y ago

PDFs are accessible: a person distrusting computer transmission or without a computer can print out the form and send it via postal service. Also, you can save a filled out PDF (or copy a paper) to have a copy of what you submitted in your records, something that is impossible to do with most webform solutions.

BrandoElFollito 5y ago
> PDFs are accessible: a person distrusting computer transmission or without a computer can print out the form and send it via postal service. Yes, this is very useful when you do not have or want to use a computer. But if you fill in a PDF form on a computer, better go for the web app whihc will be easier to read and has a higher chance to actually work (the govt PDF will always have that one weird field that cannot be filled). > Also, you can save a filled out PDF (or copy a paper) to have a copy of what you submitted in your records, something that is impossible to do with most webform solutions. It would be enough for the web form to send you a confirmation, making it also an acknowledgement of your request. We already have this for taxes for instance.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
jakub_g 5y ago
You could design HTML website in the same way, to be printable (although getting pixel perfect A4 format is tricky with HTML) Meanwhile, PDFs internally can be as accessible as JPEG in some cases; difficult for screen readers because it's optimized for screen display and printing. Sometimes PDF are not even searchable, you literally have vector glyphs and not "letters" inside. https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/open-standards-for-government/viewing-government-documents https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/open-standards-fo... Although PDFs are of course nice if you want to download it and save somewhere as a user because it's guaranteed to work and 1 file has everything. Downloaded HTML might have all kind of weird issues if it was constructed with fancy "modern" techniques. Again, proper server-rendered plain HTML+CSS for the win, perhaps with everything inlined if form is expected to be saved on disk.
- pessimizer 5y ago
  > You could design HTML website in the same way, to be printable (although getting pixel perfect A4 format is tricky with HTML) But you can also get away with not doing it, so it will not be done.
- BrandoElFollito 5y ago
  You would not need to have a true paper form. If anything really needs to be printed, it is a QR code with some basic information pointing to the online information on the gov site. This is how covid vaccine status is handled today and it works great.

brnt 5y ago

Although the French fondness for printable documents can be very annoying (it can be a lot of work, all that printing and scanning!), it is nice that it makes building your own archive simple. I now live in the NL, and while digitalisation here is advanced and generally not much work, I find it hard to document communication with the government (or business) consistently. Dutch folk are so weary of paperwork that asking for a copy for your own administration (and this has benefitted me countless times so I'm not quitting that habit) usually gets you surprised and/or annoyed frowns.

mytailorisrich 5y ago
Really, it's the French administration's fondness for paperwork. During the Covid lockdowns people were allowed to go out for a number of specific reasons, like in most countries. Of course the French administration decided that this required people to fill a specific form to select the reason, to sign the form (along with name, date and place of birth, address, date of time person left home), and to carry it with them in case police stopped them... After some time they did deploy an electronic version (on smartphones, but that's still a form) but it's the very idea of doing something like that that is symptomatic of the mindset.
- brnt 5y ago
  > Really, it's the French administration's fondness for paperwork. French business isn't any different in my experience.
- chrisseaton 5y ago
  Where does this regressive mindset come from do you think?
- oever 5y ago
  So people carried as many filled in forms as there were reasons on the form?
  - donatzsky 5y ago