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Welcome to March's edition of USEworthy. After her first month working with our team, Lisa Halabi provides a short insight to being The Usability Company's latest 'newbie'. We also provide a report of the problems with the online payment system for the congestion charging in London. The report was carried out seven days before the charge was launched and although some of the issues have been resolved the report provides valuable learning for any website developer. In fact, February will be remembered as the congestion charge month at The Usability Company as it sparked a flurry of press activity for the company and our spokespeople.
 

Our company news looks back over February and records a number of new client wins. This leads us to consider the current state of the market. With war looming on the horizon and increasing talk of a slow down just how is the market for usability services reacting?

February brought with it a number of new clients for The Usability Company. The British Standards Institute awarded TUC with a project to review and make recommendations about the User Centered Design of the BSI home page. We were also awarded a contract to review the Planning Portal, a government run website providing information about every aspect of town and country planning. February also provided us the opportunity to get to grips with Siebel when Reuters asked to assist with their internal upgrade to the latest browser based version.

After a rocky start at the TFM (Technology for Marketing) show, when we had some of our equipment stolen from the stand during set-up, we ended up having a useful and enjoyable show. The stand featured two aspects of our service set that enabled visitors to experience a Usability Evaluation for themselves and also see some of the latest online research technologies.

We demonstrated a Usability Evaluation using our mobile equipment, which was back in the UK after being used for testing throughout Europe and as far a field as Macau. Visitors to the stand were asked to take the role of a participant and to attempt a number of tasks on a variety of sites. The picture in picture audio video recording of their experience was provided to them on Credit card sized CD-Rom as a reminder of their experience.

In the area of online research we focussed on WebIQ - E-Mission Scorecard, which received a great deal of interest. Roger Beynon of Usability Sciences Corporation, one of our US partners and the developers of WebIQ was over for the show and explained to visitors to the stand how E-Mission Scorecard could measure whether their websites were achieving their mission. A short in and out survey technique is used that generates a high level of 'opt-in' and identifies amongst other things visit intent and success. The service was met with a significant level of interest and we received a number of firm enquiries.

and Finally...

The Usability Company featured regularly in the press during February. As the UK's foremost provider of business focussed usability services and consulting we are frequently asked to comment on a variety of issues. February was no different and we appeared in a variety of publications including the FT where we appeared on no less than four separate occasions. Two of these items related to the congestion charge, which was also covered on BBC Online. We were also asked to comment on the potential for the DRC (Disability Rights Commission) to carry out a formal investigation into the accessibility of websites. This brought Catriona Campbell, our CEO to the front page of New Media Age.

Commuters and other central London road users attempting to pay the congestion charge on the Web are likely to be in for a confusing and frustrating time. With less than seven days to go attempting to register on the site www.cclondon.com seems virtually impossible as response times currently stretch into minutes.

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I'd like to take this opportunity to introduce myself. I'm Lisa Halabi, the new addition to the happy gang that is called The Usability Company (TUC). I hark from a background in usability and ergonomics. I approached TUC already knowing Marty Carroll from our shared time spent on the Usability Professionals Association Committee and Catriona Campbell from various speaking events. It really is a very small field, but getting bigger by the day. It was obvious to me that TUC are going places and have a good reputation in the field. 

After a difficult January The Usability Company found February to be considerably more buoyant and we received an increase in enquiries and in overall interest in the company. We won a significant number of new accounts, some mentioned earlier in this newsletter and some won under strict NDA. However, in the course of winning new business there were the inevitable losses. As it is two years since The Usability Company was incorporated it seemed appropriate to share our thoughts.