2004

Welcome to the Season Special edition of USEworthy. In this issue, we provide highlights from the independent research conducted by The Usability Company together with Eyetracker, the UK's premier commercial eyetracking service, which scientifically details how web users view pages online. The full report is available for download in the Resources section of The Usability Company's website and the findings have already generated a great deal of press coverage and interest.
 

Paul Blunden, CEO of The Usability Company discusses in great detail the usability aspects of successful site design for online casinos. Paul stresses the importance of putting users at the centre of the development process in order to convert visitors into players and players into profits and also provides some hot tips on how to do this.

In addition, we provide excerpts from an article on accessibility that was featured in the December edition of .net magazine. This article provides an excellent update on the state of accessibility in the UK and worldwide with excerpts from interviews conducted with Marty Carroll, Director of Practice at The Usability Company, Julie Howell, digital policy development officer at RNIB and Bob Reegan, Macromedia's senior product manager for education and government. This is a comprehensive article that includes discussions with a cross section of leaders in the field of accessibility.

The Usability Company is launching its Eyetracking Service and has released an independent research paper on Eyetracking which can be downloaded from The Usability Company's website www.theusabilitycompany.com. For further information on this new service please call Paul Blunden on +44 (0)8450 546 500 or email info@theusabilitycompany.com.

The company kicked off this autumn by appointing a new Public Sector Account Manager, Richard Nalliah. Richard, an IT professional, brings many years' experience of the government sector and Managed Services Sales, joining us from LogicaCMG where he sold Managed Services. Prior to this Richard worked with Central Government and Defense clients selling application development and consulting services. The Usability Company is pleased to welcome Richard to the team.

Catriona Campbell, Chairman of The Usability Company was invited to speak at the Scotsoft 2003 Conference for government and industry in Edinburgh November 13. The event, organised by ScotlandIS, was opened by Jim Wallace MSP, Deputy First Minister and Minister for Enterprise, brought together some of the great minds from across the Information and Communications Technologies (ICT) Industry in Scotland. This year's focus was on collaborating for business, and assembled local and international speakers.

Free Workshop for Government Managers

Getting online is the easy part, but how do government website owners ensure take up of government services?

The Usability Company is holding a free workshop designed to introduce senior public sector managers to the principles behind designing government websites that ensure a valuable user experience and help to maximise customer retention. This workshop will be held December 10, 2003, 9AM -12.15PM at The Lanesborough Hotel, St George's Suite, Hyde Park Corner, London SW1X 7TA.

The Usability Company wishes all our newsletter subscribers and readers the best this season and a very happy and prosperous New Year.

Site design is key for attracting signups, converting those signups to downloads and converting those downloads into deposits. The pitfalls along the path from visitor to player are many and even the most successful sites often miss critical elements in site usability

We all know that web users are time poor and fickle when it comes to visiting sites on the web. We are constantly bombarded by advertising and promotions in all their forms. However, some of these advertisements we attend to while others we don't. Why is that?

Is your Web site breaking the law? Why should you make it accessible? What changes do you need to make? .net Magazine's Dan Oliver demystifies the confusing world of Web site accessibility