New UN Web Site Launched.

The United Nations Web site had undergone a dramatic facelift, Mahbub Ahmad, Chief of the Information Technology Section of the Department of Public Information, told correspondents at the launching of the redesigned site at a UN Headquarters press briefing on 1 September. In the four years of its existence, the UN Web site, which received some 1 million hits per day, had seen phenomenal growth and expansion. Since 1996, it had been rendered into each of the six official languages of the United Nations. However, the Arabic, Chinese, Russian and Spanish Web sites were still in the process of being developed and contained less material than the English and French sites. The first major change was that the user had to choose at the outset which of the official languages he or she wished to continue with, Mr. Ahmad explained. The word "welcome" appeared in each of the languages, and the user could then click on to the homepage in that language. The look and feel of the Web site had also changed, and it was gener ally more user-friendly.

The Web site was easier to navigate. One new feature was that the user could jump directly to other pages without having to go back to the homepage, he said. Another feature was the pop-up boxes, which explained the contents of each information item without haying to go into the actual page. The homepage also contained an item called "About the United Nations"--a compilation of information about the Organization, all in one place, which also included a live "webcam" view from the Secretariat building that could be seen at any time from any place in the world.

The redesigned site had a new page for the Secretary-General. It also contained an item entitled "Issues on the United Nations Agenda"--a collection of information on some 50 issues before the United Nations--which provided links to the UN agencies dealing with each issue, and a site index had been added. A correspondent said that the Millennium Summit Web site was "unreadable" and had been written in "UN-ese". Mr. Ahmad explained that they had been trying to make that page as user-friendly as possible.