The Australian accreditation body JASANZ has undergone a rebranding recently, most noticeably to remove the hyphen in their name (it was JAS-ANZ) and to roll out a new logo that doesn’t look like it was created by a four-year-old in MS Paint. The new one, of course, looks like someone screencapped Tetris from their cell phone, but whatever.
The new website update, however, defies all logic and is a case example of design form over the most basic functionality.
You see, someone at JASANZ thought it would be a great idea to remove all traces of the AB’s actual service offerings from the website. I am not kidding: the new update has no content on anything that JASANZ actually sells.
Recently, I was contacted by a company seeking ISO 17065 accreditation in Australia. In the old days, JASANZ had actual pages on that subject and information on how to apply. Ditto for all the other standards JASANZ accredits bodies to, like ISO 17021. Now, however, there is nothing. No pages, no links, and a menu that is more an exercise in surrealist art than actual function.
Take a look at the new sites’ main menu:
So, if you wanted to search for a specific service that JASANZ offers — you know, the things that they earn money doing — where would you go? Let’s take a look.
Clicking “Conformity Assessment Bodies” results in a page with this menu:
Of those, you’d probably think the “Accreditation and Certification” option might tell you what JASANZ does, but you’d be wrong. That is a page simply explaining the difference between “certification” and “accreditation.” So, you might then click “Becoming Accredited” but you’d be wrong again: it’s just a list of steps to achieve accreditation without ever telling you what JASANZ can actually offer accreditation for.
Clicking “Sectors” gets you a little closer, as — after a number of other clicks — you can finally hone down a bit into what JASANZ sells. But it’s neither clear nor comprehensive. For example, you will not find any entries at all for ISO 17065, only obscure references to “product certification” under schemes like WaterMark and CodeMark. If you were looking to get ISO 17021-1 accredited, you’d have to click a bunch more times, only to finally be faced with this bit of non-information:
Scrolling down, you finally find a passing reference to ISO 17021-1, but never any actual wording that says, “yeah, this is what we sell.”
Searching for a given standard — you know, the one you want to JASANZ huge wads of cash to accredit you for — doesn’t work, either, because they removed all the legacy content on actual services from their old website. Now, you just get links to the various pages that don’t actually say anything.
If you go back to the main menu and click “Accredited Bodies” you are presented with a page where you can search. If you try searching by the ISO standard you might be looking for, you will get this fun trolling bit:
Clicking “Certifications” gives you an IAF CertSearch-style page to search certificates issued by the accredited bodies, but still no idea of the services provided by JASANZ.
Finally, “Endorsed Schemes” lists the various things that JASANZ presumably does, but just resolves back to pages that are presented when you click “Sectors.”
Mind you, there is no “how to apply” link anywhere on any menu. Instead, there is a link buried on a sub-page titled “What is Accreditation,” which then provides information on “Becoming Accredited.” That latter page has no actual links to apply, nor any list of what accreditation JASANZ offers.
JASANZ will let you sign up for a free training course on how to fill out their application, though, even though they don’t tell you what you can actually apply for. And then, things get much worse. Rather than making their accreditation application process simpler, JASANZ thought it would be cool to remind you just how horrible it is by admitting, “We know that applying for accreditation with JASANZ can be challenging and the process quite complex.” Yeah, your website kinda telegraphed that.
Hint: if you have to train people on how to fill out an application, you might be doing it wrong. You’re certainly encouraging people to seek another accreditation body instead of using yours.
The complications may be a feature, not a bug. Apart from the free application course, JASANZ does seem to be leaning into paid classes for its clients, which is the only thing you can actually buy on the site. They offer a ton of courses on things like implementing the various IAF Mandatory Documents. Oh, it’s not one class, either; there is a course for each individual MD. These and other courses run between $AUS 250 to $1300 a pop. Yes, once again, an AB is more interested in selling classes than accreditations.
Oh, and yeah, they never bothered to create a simple URL forwarding link from their old site (jas-anz.org) to the new one (jasanz.org), so they’ve lost all that traffic, too. I mean, that takes all of fifteen seconds to do, even if you have had all your fingers mutilated in a terrorist piano accident.
The website was, according to the footer, designed by an Australian studio called Swell. The Swell website pretty much tells you what you need to know. It features lots of cool-looking photos of their developers posing in moody postures while wearing hip t-shirts, standing against a bare gray wall, to make them seem — I suppose — like serious artists. You half expect all of them to be wearing French berets and holding books of Proust while sipping cappuccinos and listening to Death Cab for Cutie. Apparently, they can’t pay the heating bill, because everyone is posing with folded arms or their hands in their pockets, as if they are freezing. Maybe drop the t-shirts and buy everyone a goddamned sweater?
The end result is simple. If you want to buy what JASANZ is selling, you’re out of luck. Their website is basically an artsy, if dull, advertisement for JASANZ’s competitors, since after five minutes on the site, you are just going to leave and go shop elsewhere anyway. The folks at IAS happy, at least.
Pro tip: when referring to the AB, pronounce it “jazz hands.” They love that.
Christopher Paris is the founder and VP Operations of Oxebridge. He has over 35 years’ experience implementing ISO 9001 and AS9100 systems, and helps establish certification and accreditation bodies with the ISO 17000 series. He is a vocal advocate for the development and use of standards from the point of view of actual users. He is the writer and artist of THE AUDITOR comic strip, and is currently writing the DR. CUBA pulp novel series. Visit www.drcuba.world
