Seminario 6

Usability for E-Government

Who is User Vision?

British-based usability and user experience consultancy
Public Sector clients:
BBC Directgov Cabinet Office Scottish Enterprise NHS Houses of Parliament Department of Health Leeds City Council Aberdeen City Council Aberdeenshire Council Scottish Legal Aid Board English Heritage

My background, trained in
Human Computer Interaction

Work Experience
Consultant since 1990 Wide variety of clients, projects
Finance Government E-commerce

Established User Vision in 2000

What is Usability?
The effectiveness, efficiency and satisfaction with which specified users achieve specified goals in specified environments
ISO DIS 13407 Human Centred Design for Interactive Systems

Effectiveness Can they reach their goals

find what they are looking for do what they want to do?

Efficiency How fast

number of errors amount of effort number of steps?

Satisfaction Was it a good/bad experience?

Do it again? Recommend to others?

Agenda
The challenge & benefits of government online Key usability barriers for government online Future trends & E-democracy Mobile services Methods to Apply to improve e-government

Barriers to Web Usage

100% Slow page load Accessibility problems Confusing jargon, topic organisation

% of site visitors

Poor look and feel Inflexible search Clumsy site navigation Unreadable content Poor search results Forms errors

Privacy & security concerns

0%

Customer Acquisition

First Impression

Search for info or service

Act upon info or service

Stages in site use

Public Sector Usability Benefits

Reduced Service Delivery Cost
Lower administration through Self-Service Channel migration to lower-cost channel

Improved Customer Service

Improved trust Return visits Improved sense of trust with the consumer, retention

Better Service Take-Up

Better conversion rates More effective marketing Return visits & recommendation to other users

UK Student Loans Company

Total across all domiciles
900000 800000 700000 600000 500000 400000 300000 200000 100000 0 2006/07 2007/08 Academic Year 2008/09 Number of Applications

Paper applications Online applications

Paper applications: 82,000 to 46,000 Online applications: 14,500 to 51,000 Online: 15% to 52%

SEERAD
Farmers apply for financial grants from Government Previous site had separate forms/interfaces created by different teams Inconsistency led to bad user experience, errors completing forms to claim financial entitlements. If errors made, farmers would be penalised (i.e. guilty until proven innocent) eroding trust Most still wanted to complete offline rather than online. Errors as a result of very poor online error handling This resulted in huge trust issues with SEERAD Solution
Aim to reduce errors in claims and reduce the administrative costs Usability testing with farmers & agents Created a single user interface, rather than separate ones More consistency / joined up solution

Results
Use of online solution rose from less than 5% to 25% in 4 years

Contextual issues
Web projects typically driven by either IT dept or personnel dept - neither understand the user experience Sometimes efficiencies interpreted as job losses reluctance to do this Best solution - have a team responsible for user experience across : Voice of the Customer

Public Sector Site Best Practice

1. Inclusive 2. Up to date 3. Trustworthy : Truth, Authority, Authentic 4. Channel Harmony 5. Avoidable Contacts 6. Engagement

Agenda
The challenge & benefits of government online Key usability barriers for government online
Orientation from Home Page Navigation Writing of content Search within site Forms Accessibility

Future trends & E-democracy Mobile services Methods to Apply to improve e-government

Home page

Clear headings User-centred tasks Topics & A-Z

Home page

Navigation & Information Architecture

We expect organisational schemes to be:
Exact - e.g. White pages
Everything has a place Easy to create & maintain Good for known item searches E.g. name (alphabetic), chronology

Ambiguous - e.g. Yellow pages

Full of overlap Hard to create & maintain Good for subject searches, associative learning E.g. subject, audience, task

Site Index

All UK Government sites have A-Z Good if you know what will be searched for

Develop & test the Navigation

Navigation labels are the stepping stones leading people to their content Base these on end users, not departments Clear labels help users decide the scent of information Sub categories and previews can also help

Consolidating UK Government sites

January 2007 decision: hundreds of government websites shut down Estimate government could save 400m over 3 years Government information will be streamlined through two main 'supersites'
Directgov (for citizens) Businesslink (for businesses)

Direct.Gov.uk
UK government's website for citizens Single point of access to government information and services Content from 18 government departments Links to online transactions and forms e.g.
applying for a passport buying a television licence car licensing registering to vote enrol children in school tax return Much more

Growth of Directgov
Since 2004, grown from 800,000 visits a month to over five million
Site Usage
8,000,000 7,000,000

July 06

May 07

Visits Sep 08 Unique Users

visits Unique Users

6,000,000

5,000,000

4,000,000

3,000,000

2,000,000

1,000,000

Ju l-0 A 6 ug -0 6 S ep -0 6 O ct -0 6 N o v06 D ec -0 6 Ja n0 7 Fe b07 M ar -0 7 A pr -0 M 7 ay -0 7 Ju n07 Ju l-0 A 7 ug -0 7 S ep -0 7 O ct -0 7 N ov -0 7 D ec -0 7 Ja n08 Fe b08 M ar -0 8 A pr -0 M 8 ay -0 8 Ju n08 Ju l-0 8 A ug -0 8 S ep -0 8

Time

Two ways to search

Topic
Education and learning Home and community Money, tax and benefits Travel and transport Crime, justice and the law Motoring Employment Health and well-being Environment Government, citizens & rights

Audiences
Young people Parents Disabled people Over 50s Britons living abroad Carers

Let the citizen choose how to find info

Allowing 2 routes into the information is faceted navigation Lets the user choose best route, depending on their circumstances and goals Most information can be found through 2 routes

I know there are maternity laws, but how much time do I get off work and how will it affect my pay?

Following the parents route

Parent route

Related information, online transactions & context

Following the employment route

Employment route

Previews

Providing another level of preview helps users understand what is within

Card Sorting
Simple & powerful exercise Sort cards into piles of related topics. Create duplicates Give groups names Create super-groups if relevant

Food Fruit
Apples Oranges

Vegetables
Onion Peppers Beef Lamb

Meat

Fish
Cod Salmon Tuna

Chicken

Hierarchies in sites
Site organised into hierarchy Card sorting gets information on users preferred hierarchy

Cluster Analysis
Statistical analysis of results provides a useful tree diagram to show the relations between the individual items

http://www.websort.net/

Principles of Web writing

Ways to adapt existing text
Make text scannable highlight key words, meaningful subheadings, bullet points Make text concise Cut the word count in half

Start with conclusion who, what, where, when and why

Case Study - Text Presentation

The exact same message was presented with 50% fewer words, increasing users understanding of the process

Searching in a site
Increasingly important people use Google Main search challenges
Cant find search box Search logic doesnt match users logic Search results are poorly presented

Main recommendations
Make flexible with spell checker, synonym expansion and plurals Clear results page
Provide an abstract - more than the URL & page title If page title used in listing, ensure they are unique

Check your search logs and create a customised search results for most frequently searched items

Search

Search

Search

Search
Many, relevant results returned for INDGENAS But a search for INDIGENAS

Search

Ensure search is Flexible allow people to spell words wrong Find out the words used by people not the department Check your search files see what people are looking for

Controlled vocabulary / thesaurus

Search engine logic maps variant terms onto the preferred term in the metadata Other associations are factored into search results synonym rings
Va ria Va nt ria te nt rm te rm

Va ria n

t te rm
ri a Va e nt t rm

Preferred term

Controlled vocabulary / thesaurus

Broader term Employing people Hierarchical Variant term Employment legislation Associative Related term Industrial tribunals Narrower Terms Disability discrimination laws, dismissal & notice periods, employee rights, working hours, equal opportunities Equivalence Preferred term Employment law Hierarchical Associative Related term Wage Board Equivalence Variant term Work regulations

Common Metadata across sites

Online Forms: Registration, payment

Make benefit immediately clear Provide clear instructions and examples Simplify and reduce steps where possible Provide feedback where you are in process Remove security & data protection fears Give clear error messages Offer shortcuts for error-prone data (e.g. dropdown lists, calendars) Distinguish Primary & Secondary Actions Give easy access to help

Form Progress

Clearly tells users what they will need Shows them where they are in the process

Form Actions & Help

Present primary and secondary actions to illuminate their importance

Help text can be automatically shown as people engage with input fields

Accessibility

Accessibility is an important topic in the UK Especially for Government, important to be inclusive 6.3% of the Colombian population (42.000.000 people) have some kind of disability.

Accessibility

Accessibility

Alt Tags on Graphical Text

Many ways to test basic accessibility www.w3.org/wai www.tawdis.net www.wave.webaim.org/ www.webaim.org/resources

Accessibility tools
Instituto de Seguros Sociales www.iss.gov.co

Missing ALT tags, Headings are most common problems Very easy to fix

Agenda
The challenge & benefits of government online Key usability barriers for government online Future trends & E-democracy Mobile services Methods to Apply to improve e-government

E-Government in a Web 2.0 world

The Web 2.0 world enables
Open APIs to share & mashup information (e.g. maps) Greater 2-way communication

It is an opportunity to engage citizens Let your citizens tell you

What they like / dont like What needs to be fixed

Let your citizens find out

Who their representatives are How they voted

Who is my Member of Parliament?

How he voted

Write to him

See how much he spent

Hear back from him directly

Get them to fix things

Report problems in your area and see if they are fixed
Vandalism Graffiti Utilities

See the problems

Help resolve the problems

Petition the Prime Minister

Petition the Prime Minister

Personalisation & customisation

Controlling layout

Controlling layout

Controlling layout

Local Services

Register for Personalised information

Geographical information

Geographical information

Geographical information

Agenda
The challenge & benefits of government online Key usability barriers for government online Future trends & E-democracy Mobile services Methods to Apply to improve e-government

Other channels - Mobile

Mobile Services should be appropriate for the context
Local services Travel

Appearance on mobiles
Unable to Navigate on Mobile

Agenda
The challenge & benefits of government online Key usability barriers for government online Future trends & E-democracy Mobile services Methods to Apply to improve e-government
Focus groups Card Sorting Usability Tests Web analytics

A common approach to Web design

Developers define the system based on functionality and business wishes (without looking at users) The front end team puts an interface on As launch approaches:

Site demo given to client / management, or Site is reviewed with end users for usefulness (maybe)
Fix the problems or release it anyway?
The cost of a complete web site overhaul is roughly 30 times that of incorporating testing early on(Forrester Research Why Most Web Sites Fail)

Cost of Design Change

0

Project scoping Implementation

Design

Build

Test

Life Cycle Phase

A good public sector web site should:

Have clear input from stakeholders on sites aim and audience Be based on research into users needs Include tests to determine if:
The site is meeting users needs The aims of stakeholders have been achieved

Be continuously and adapted to meet users needs Be usable and accessible

Definition from the OeE Quality Framework for UK Government website design, 2003

Gulf of Execution
We need to use this architecture

Designers Model Businesss Model

Lets use this new cool technology Our database only accepts these characters

Users Mental Model

Task Analysis & Usability Methods

I want to buy this product I want to register for updates I need to find this information

The Gulf of Execution

We sell these products Our company is structured this way People should know about the company history

Usability activities during design

Planning: Cost-benefit analysis, method selection, goal setting User / Task / Environment profiles Competitor usability benchmark Scenario creation, Personas, release criteria, usability metrics Style guide Information architecture Prototype design Usability inspection Usability testing User feedback, site modifications Requirements Design Build Test Implement

Feedback

Design Iteration

User Profile Example

Pensionet.com Your source of information about annuities and financial planning for retirement
Characteristics Personal / physical characteristics Job profile Education Style preferences Description
Most over 50 years, many will have visual or other physical disabilities. 50% male / 50% female Retired Various Most are new to the web, and many are not comfortable with it. Consider metaphors that are familiar to them (newspapers) and use familiar, large fonts Easy to use steps in any transactional & registration areas, reinforce the security message, offer other channels for payment than over web. Contextual help support, friendly error messages Links to pensioner groups, genealogy links? Others

Design Implications
Larger text, support speaking browsers, text to background contrast, avoid flashing animations

Concerns

Security over the internet, especially in shopping. Looking foolish and making mistakes on the web.

Wants

Easy access to other people of their generation, information on relevant events. A pleasant experience on the web, which many of them find daunting. Nostalgia,

Personas

Personas Provide a description of your user type to keep them in mind during design

Persona in more detail

Early Paper prototypes

Paper Prototypes
Early design sketches Little time & effort Feedback immediately applied

Usability Testing
Simple labs includes:
Computer 2 chairs Camcorder & tripod

Usability activities during design

Planning: Cost-benefit analysis, method selection, goal setting User / Task / Environment profiles Competitor usability benchmark Scenario creation, Personas, release criteria, usability metrics Style guide Information architecture Prototype design Usability inspection Usability testing User feedback, site modifications Requirements Design Build Test Implement

Feedback

Design Iteration

Summary
Usability Critical for E-Government success Key areas
Navigation Search Forms Accessibility

Web 2.0 Technologies may be appropriate Consider usability at the start

Thank you
User Vision 55 North Castle Street Edinburgh EH2 3QA p: 0131 225 0850 The City Arc 89 Worship Street London EC2 2BF p: 020 7917 1840 www.uservision.co.uk Chris@uservision.co.uk

http://www.esd.org.uk/standards/ipsv/2.00/viewer/ http://www.redbridge.gov.uk/ www.direct.gov.uk http://www.bogota.gov.co/portel/libreria/php/decid e.php?patron=01.14 http://www.theyworkforyou.com/

Material elaborado por:

Chris Rourke* Agencia Big Speak

Para el Programa Gobierno en lnea del Ministerio de Comunicaciones

Ciclo de Seminarios
Cursos Preprese 2008 para servidores pblicos
* Arrangements for the appearance of Chris Rourke made through BigSpeak, Inc., Santa Barbara CA, www.BigSpeak.com.