Welcome to May's edition of USEworthy. In this issue, we present a case study on the work completed by The Usability Company for Jamjar cars, the UK's leading car retailer, to improve the performance of the jamjar.com website. We provide an update on accessibility news including details of the Disability Rights commission's investigation of 1,000 sites and a leaked report from the e-Envoy's office stating that nearly 80% of UK central government websites need redesigning before they can be fully accessible to users with disabilities.
 

April was an exceptional month at The Usability Company. We achieved record business success and finalised a partnership with Net IQ, a leading provider of web analytics solutions, to provide Usability Analytics™ services for clients using Net IQ's web analytics product, Web Trends. We discuss the partnership further in the Company News section of the newsletter.

The Usability Company has partnered with web analytics provider Net IQ to offer consultancy on Usability Analytics™. Both Forrester and Gartner forecast that the use of web analytics data will increase significantly in the next decade.

Previously the data has been predominantly owned and managed from the IT department but recent research by Marty Carroll, Director of the Usability Practice has shown how this data can be used to provide vital information about the user experience. The response to the research, published in the Interactive Marketing journal Volume 4 Number 3 January/March 2003 has been considerable and has coincided with the launch of a new service from The Usability Company - Usability Analytics™.

The Usability Company's Usability Analytics™ service for web based platforms, combines usability consultancy with web analytic data to provide organisations with vital information about:

• How users behave on a site
• The site's weakest areas
• Performance of the site against key metrics (KPI's)
• ROI from improvements or work carried out

To speak to a consultant about Usability Analytics™, please call +44 (0)8450 546 500.

Marty Carroll, Director of Usability Practice at The Usability Company participated in a roundtable discussion at the Institute of Directors at the end of March. The theme of the round table was to highlight the issues surrounding the linking of customer service from company's websites, through the call/contact centre and fulfilment of the customer's order. The group discussed methods of measuring the effectiveness of a company web site from an end user's point of view and how this can impact upon a company's sales and brand value.

Marty also took part in a radio talk show on the issues surrounding accessibility. The talk show was broadcast on over 35 radio stations across the country from March 25 – April 24. Marty was interviewed along with John Harris, Accessibility Manager at Macromedia Northern Europe.

April 2003 was a record month for The Usability Company and we would like to thank all our clients for their contribution to our success!

Accessibility Training Course Dates
The Usability Company is launching its One-day Accessibility Training Course for managers and anyone responsible for website development and success. The course covers the most important issues surrounding accessibility on the Internet and Intranet. Each course is limited to a maximum of 10 people. The first three course dates are as follows, June 5, July 17 and August 14 2003. Please use these links for more information on the course or to register for the course.

Hot Topics in Usability Conference
- Accessibility Day, May 2 2003
Catriona Campbell, founder of The Usability Company, will be chairing the accessibility day of the Hot Topics in Usability conference May 2, 2003. Speakers on the day include Tom Adams from the Office of the E-Envoy, Julie Howell from the RNIB, Kevin Russell from Standard Life and Catriona Campbell herself will be speaking on "getting best value from your investment in accessible e-services".

One thousand websites will be investigated for their ability to be accessed by Britain's 8.5 million disabled people in the Disability Rights Commission's (DRC) first Formal Investigation, it was announced March 27, 2003. 

Nearly 80 percent of UK central government websites need to be redesigned before they can be fully accessible to users with disabilities, judging from a leaked report from the e-Envoy's office. According to eGov Monitor Weekly, around 800 public sector Web sites may need rebuilding to comply with accessibility laws requiring government services to cater for people with disabilities. 

jamjar cars selected The Usability Company to help improve the performance of the www.jamjar.com website. A number of companies were invited to present their proposals to jamjar with the brief being to offer an objective external user view of how the website was actually performing and assess its ease of use. This would highlight any issues that would need to be addressed through the planned future development.