Welcome to August's edition of USEworthy. In this issue, we continue to focus on quality and Best Practice. We provide a condensed version of our User Centered Design Best Practice guide, which was developed by Tobias Misera, Head of User Centered Design at The Usability Company.
 

Joanne Hung, our latest recruit to our Usability Practice tells us What Users Want. In this article, Joanne discusses the most commonly made mistakes she has come across in her 5 years' experience as a Usability Specialist in the UK and Australia and she also provides some tips to remedy these mistakes. 

The Office of the e-Envoy has launched the Quality Framework for UK government website design discussed in last month's newsletter. Catriona Campbell, Chairman and Founder of The Usability Company was one of the two usability specialists consulted by the Office of the e-Envoy to assist in developing the document. In light of this, we also provide an article from the BBC News website, August 4, in which Catriona Campbell discusses the issues surrounding the task of making government websites usable.

You will find a copy of the quality framework document at the Office of the e-Envoy website. Please scroll down on the page for the document titled Quality Framework for UK government website design.

July was a hot and successful month at The Usability Company! We are pleased to announce that having completed a highly successful pilot scheme, The Usability Company has been awarded the contract to provide the BSI Group with its User Centered Design and User Centered Design services over the coming year.

The work will be carried out across the BSI Group's entire site in two parts. Initially an extensive Usability Evaluation will be conducted on the site's existing sections. The second phase will see an User Centered Design redesign with the development of new templates and site structure.

The Usability Company is also delighted to announce that Joanne Hung has joined the Usability Company's Usability Practice team as a Usability Specialist. Joanne has over 5 years experience as a Usability Specialist in the UK and Australia gained in various IT related companies including IBM Global Services, Australia.

Marty Carroll, Director of Usability Practice at The Usability Company, was a judge at the recent 2003 Forum awards. With 110 entrants in eight different categories the awards seek to recognise pioneering government sites, particularly with regard to usability and accessibility. The awards, organised by COI Communications (a department reporting to the Minister for the Cabinet Office), were held on July 15th at the Congress Centre in London. For more information see http://www.theforum.gov.uk/awards/

Catriona Campbell has been invited to participate in the upcoming e-consultancy roundtable discussion on usability, August 26. The e-consultancy roundtables offer the opportunity for people within the industry to share knowledge and experiences within e-business.

Catriona also spoke at the CIPFA e-Government Seminar on Making e-Services accessible to people with disabilities, July 3 2003. Catriona talked about the accessibility and usability issues addressed in the Office of the e-Envoy's new 'Quality Framework' for government websites. She then outlined a best practice approach to ensuring inclusive design and also discussed some website accessibility audits that The Usability Company has conducted. If you are a member of the e-government Forum or the CIPFA you may download the slides from Catriona's presentation.

Web design has come a long way since the beginning of the Internet, with so much experience behind us there are still sites that are difficult to use. The following article addresses some of the usability issues that should be considered during the development of any website. 

User Centered Design (User Centered Design), in a user centred design context is the foundation upon which good usability is built. This is being increasingly understood and as a result requirements for User Centered Design work have grown significantly in the past 12 months. User Centered Design is not graphic design and it is not usability, it compliments both and each are interdependent on the other two if the output is to be world class. 

Government plans to make official websites accessible by anyone could be hit by a cash shortfall.