Don’t do website maintenance during the day

The North Carolina Department of Transportation feels it necessary to perform website maintenance on a Sunday morning. What I’ve always disliked about government web services is the lack of understanding of when citizens perform online tasks via government sites. This is what I was presented with today when I tried to renew my license plate tabs via the NC DOT website:

This would be completely unacceptable for a consumer website. I guess since the state requires registration and you have no other choice but to visit their site around their maintenance schedule or (gasp) go into a local DOT office, they really don’t have to cater to the schedules of citizens.

Website maintenance, regardless of industry, should be done during off-peak hours. Granted, Sunday mornings are probably not peak hours, they are still more prone to visits than they would be between the hours of 2AM and 7AM.

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