Showing posts with label interface. Show all posts
Showing posts with label interface. Show all posts

Monday, July 13, 2015

If you want to see the impact of poor user interface design, look no further than Canberra's parking meters

User interface design (or UX design) has been a buzz term for several years in government, with agencies spending significant money on ensuring their services and processes are easy for the broadest range of citizens to access and complete.

This is a good thing too - It makes good economic, reputational and even health sense to make it easy and fast for citizens to interact with government, reducing mistakes, stress and negative impressions.

Complex and difficult to user interfaces have higher error rates, resulting in frustrated and sometimes out-of-pocket citizens, extra costs for government and often a loss of trust and respect in the service outcomes and agencies responsible.

Anyone who still doesn't understand the value to both government and citizens need go no further to witness the issues poor interfaces and processes cause than Canberra's parking lots, where the current crop of parking meters are creating all kinds of problems for citizens.

For example the current parking meters in the Wilson-run car park on London Circuit follow a process that is both complex and invasive for customers, greatly increasing the time required to conduct one of the simplest tasks a citizen has to perform, renting a parking spot.

Firstly the machines have an unnecessarily complex interface, with six buttons, several unmarked, one each red and green and the other four all yellow. Little stickers have been manually attached to several of the buttons to explain their functions, although several of the yellow buttons are used for multiple purposes at different stages of purchasing a ticket and different times of day. Most have two name tags, one at top, one at bottom. Some of these tags were faded and hard to read, so would presumably need to be replaced regularly, adding unnecessary effort to the process of maintaining the machines and increasing the risk of errors by parkers.

The many buttons on Wilson parking machines in Canberra
The many buttons on Wilson parking machines in Canberra
Secondly the process to pay for a parking spot isn't as well explained or as easy as it could be. The machine first asks for a person's payment method (coins or card) and then requires entry of the car's license plate via a touch screen (so why buttons you may also ask).

Now, I don't know about everyone, but many people I know, including myself, haven't memorised our car license plates. It's never used as a form of personal identification and only rarely are people required to use it, usually when organising to service their car (and after the first service, normally a mobile number or name is sufficient for a mechanic). 

There's no benefit to the user to providing this license plate information - only to Wilsons, who I presume use it to prevent people ticket sharing if they leave a spot early, so they can profiteer by re-renting an already paid-up parking spot (which could be considered unethical profiteering, but is one of the techniques used to maximise profits in car parks).

Enter License Plate to begin (the second screen, so not the beginning!)
Enter License Plate to begin (the second screen, so not the beginning!)
There's also no signage in the car park, at the entrance or at the machine, to indicate to someone entering the car park, or waiting in line to buy a ticket, that they need to have this information at their fingertips. A parker new to the car park only finds out they need to have memorised their license plate when they reach this specific screen in the process - and they can't proceed any further without entering it.

The number and placement of machines in the car park can mean up to about a 50m walk back to your car to check, meaning a 100m round trip to retrieve this information. If there's a queue for tickets, common at peak times, this can make the ticket purchase process a 15 minute or longer process - intensely frustrating for busy professionals on their way to a meeting (speaking from personal experience).
Once past this screen the process was a little simpler, if followed precisely. The screen told me which yellow buttons to press (although I had to recognise that 'Select Earlybird' meant press the button which was marked as both 'Card' and 'E/Bird'), it took my coins quickly and efficiently dispensed my ticket.

Unfortunately the process wasn't as seamless for people ahead of me in the line who were using credit cards. Often the machine took three or more goes to recognise the card as valid and, once it had, it took on average 135 seconds to approve each transaction (I timed this). 

For credit card users, if you knew your license plate number (as regulars would learn to do), the entire process took approximately 3.5 to 4 minutes to complete, most of it spent choosing the right yellow buttons and waiting for credit card approval. At this rate each machine could service 15-20 people per hour. Cutting a minute off the credit card approval process would allow the machine to service 25-30 people per hour, This is up to a 100% increase in speed, resulting in less stressed customers, better patronage and more revenue for the car park.

Most of Canberra's public car parks have ACT government parking machines. These are different to Wilson's and have a slightly better interface - although they don't allow coin payments. 

Having used them frequently I'm not as able to look at them with unfamiliar eyes, however they provide better onscreen instructions to step people through the necessary steps, although I've witnessed people struggling to understand the '+' and '-' buttons for increasing or decreasing the parking time, with many people just paying the full amount rather than selecting a time period.

These machines don't require a license number, and don't have unnecessary buttons, so the overall impression is of a simpler process.

However these machines suffer from a similar issue to the Wilson machines for the credit card approval process, which takes a relatively long time for card approvals. While I appreciate this might be due to dialing into the bank each time, it does mean that at peak times there can be a long line of people standing and waiting for their turn, resulting in more stressed customers and potentially reductions in revenue.

I've also witnessed situations where there's insufficient room to queue safely for these machines, with people required to wait in a queue that snakes into the roads within the car park, where they and cars must dodge each other. This presents an increased risk of an accident, where a pedestrian is harmed by a car attempting to find a car spot, potentially increasing the legal risks to the ACT government.

Now these ACT government car parks do allow people to pay for their parking online, removing the queuing and waiting at the car park, when people may be rushed for time. This option is not well explained on the machines in the car parks, which is a shame as it could cut queues as people waiting could simply go online to pay. 

Incidentally I find this a very handy trick at Hoyts to avoid some of the really long queues for movies - despite their ridiculous surcharge on online purchases, when nudge theory suggests they should charge less for online purchases (including from the Candy Bar) to prompt greater take-up and reduce physical queues and staff time.

However I've heard and read many reports of people who have found online payment for car parking a frustrating process as, once parked, parking inspectors often give tickets to people who aren't displaying a parking ticket. This has even received media coverage

As a result I've not tried this process and likely won't try it until the ACT government makes it clear (on parking meters and via it's own media channels) that the online option is working correctly.

This issue seems to be purely a training and change management one, with parking inspectors needing some adjustment of their behaviour through training and support to ensure they check the online system before issuing tickets.

Tens of thousands of public servants use Canberra's parking machines regularly, and have likely noticed issues and possibly even expressed frustration with the user interface and process. Many would have adjusted their own behaviours to deal with the foibles of the systems - arriving a few minutes earlier to allow for credit card purchase approval time, memorised their license plate number and learnt the right sequence of button presses to achieve the outcome they need daily.

All of them should consider the user interface and process, reflecting on their own experience. How could it be made simpler and easier, particularly for parkers who don't use the parking every day?

Then take that thinking and reflect on the user interfaces and processes they create and administer within government. How could they be made simpler and easier for citizens and for public servants, while reducing the error rate and cost to government?

What is the impact of any poor design within their own systems - both to citizens and government? And what value could be delivered, and behaviours adjusted positively, by improving the user interface design?

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Monday, August 06, 2012

Is the Australian Government really slow to update staff to modern web browsers?

One of the concerns I faced when working in government, and that I know many other people faced as well, was the currency of the web browser(s) available for use by staff.

Some agencies still used Microsoft Internet Explorer 6, a ten year old browser that isn't supported by many major websites and online services and that even Microsoft admits is insecure and out-of-date. It is now used by only 0.8% of Australian web users.

Statcounter research - Web browsers used in April 2012
|in Australia and Oceania
Others prohibit access to Firefox or Chrome - which, according to some reports, together now hold a larger share of web browsing by Australians than Internet Explorer, and are also considered by many to be more standards compliant.

In fact Chrome v21 (at 21.1%) is reportedly the most used web browser by version in Australia, followed by Internet Explorer 9 (19.6%) and Firefox 11 (16%).

Why is the selection of browser so important?

There's a few reasons that spring to my mind.

Because the browser selected can limit the ability of staff at agencies to use the internet productively. To source information, monitor conversations online, use modern web services and even access advanced intranet features.

Because it costs more to develop for older, standards non-compliant web browsers - with Internet Explorer 6 compliance often adding 20% to the cost and development time of web sites and intranets.

Because it constrains testing of websites. While some web teams have special dispensation to access every browser for test purposes, in other agencies staff are forced to rely on their personal devices, or simply can't test for modern browsers.

Because there is an imperative on government to not use software more than two versions old - a particular issue for agencies still using Internet Explorer 6 when the current version is 9.


I can understand agencies who are 'trapped in the past'. There's often more important priorities for IT and management - critical systems that need to be managed, budget and resourcing concerns. However if you could improve the productivity and happiness of all your staff with a simple software upgrade which also improves your security, well...

There's also sometimes technical issues. While web browsers are free, upgrading an entire department isn't. There are dependencies - particularly with SAP, which stubbornly only supported Internet Explorer 6 until recent versions. It costs money to upgrade SAP and to manage this and a browser upgrade across thousands of computers, including any communication and training support required. Agencies, with other priorities, may put off this work as long as they can.

All this aside - how are Australian Government agencies actually doing in terms of how modern their web browsers are. Are the majority still stuck on Internet Explorer 6 or a similar old and insecure web browser?

As part of my FOI request on social media in March, I asked agencies which web browsers they used, as it impacts on which social media tools they can use.

The exact question was:
Which web browsers are currently mandated and/or supported for use by your agency's staff when using agency supplied IT equipment as specified below?
(Please tick applicable web browsers or supply by email a copy of the documentation on your Standard Operating Environment detailing this information)

While some agencies may regard this as confidential, please note the web browser type and version can, in most cases, be detected by any website visited by your staff.

Aside from two agencies who told me that this was "commercial-in-confidence" information they would not release, most agencies were very willing to provide this information.

I've aggregated the results in the chart below based on the 65 legitimate survey responses I received (the easiest information to analyse). Other (non-survey) responses haven't been included due to the analyse time required.
Web browsers officially mandated by Australian Government agencies
for use by their staff - sample from 65 agencies.

Looking at this response, many agencies supported multiple web browsers - generally Internet Explorer and one other.

Few remained on Internet Explorer 6 or 7, and most sat one version behind the most recent released web browsers - such as on Internet Explorer 8.

I did make one error. I forgot to include Blackberry's browser as an option for mobile phones. This is used as standard across all Blackberry mobile devices, so can be considered a standard.

So overall, how did Australia Government agencies do?

Very well in my view - and better than I had anticipated.

While a few agencies (including some very large ones) still lag back on Internet Explorer 6 or 7, most are using acceptably modern web browsers, even providing a choice in many cases - which helps compensate for some of the minor niggles in some browser versions.

Note
You can now view (and analyse) survey responses from my social media FOI as well at: https://www.surveymonkey.com/sr.aspx?sm=mE_2bvebDvXLOHHKrCnKP79IaCNkFpWjDocQJAN5aEvCQ_3d)

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Monday, April 23, 2012

Victorian government launches consultation blog for a new Vic.gov.au site

The Victorian government has launched a blog asking users for their ideas on how to improve the vic.gov.au website as it goes through a redevelopment.

The /blog states that the aim of the redevelopment is to provide:
  • an appealing new branding and identity for the www.vic.gov.au website 
  •  a new and usable look and feel 
  • a more modern and relevant site to visitors 
  • an easier way to find information (improved search and a clear starting point and navigation options) 
  • more dynamic content 
So far the blog has attracted 14 comments on its (so far) three posts - with several being comments from the blog team responding to user feedback.

Alongside the blog it is also possible to rate vic.gov.au at the Victoria Online Customer Satisfaction survey.


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Thursday, April 05, 2012

Governments need to ensure their websites work for modern users

I went to the Australian Business Register site (www.abr.gov.au) this afternoon to set up an ABN (Australian Business Number) for a company.

This is a very common step, taken by hundreds, if not thousands, of Australians every week.

However I immediately hit a speed bump.

The site's online ABN registration process threw up an error message (image below) stating:

Browser not supported
The Australian Business Register currently supports the following browsers:
  • Internet Explorer 5.0 and above
  • Netscape 6.0 and above
You should update your browser version before you continue using the Australian Business Register. If you believe your current browser is suitable to use, please continue.

Refer to Technical Information for details on how to configure for your browser for the Australian Business Register.
This was confusing and offputting as I was using Firefox 11.0 - one of the most modern web browsers available.

Fortunately I had Internet Explorer 9 on my system and gave this a try - no error screen appeared.

Now if you read far enough into the error message it does state that 'If you believe your current browser is suitable to use, please continue.' - however I was in a hurry at the time and, like many users, didn't read the error message all the way through.
The error message visible at the Australian Business Register site, together with the 'About' information window for the web browser in use
The error message visible at the Australian Business Register site,
together with the 'About' information window for the web browser in use

Regardless of whether this translates into a user error, I believe that there is an obligation on government agencies to ensure their websites are accessible and usable in modern web browsers without unnecessary and confusing error screens.

Essentially, when I have Firefox 11.0, I don't expect to receive an error stating I need 'Internet Explorer 5.0 and above' or 'Netscape 6.0 and above' - as my web browser is "above" both and, in fact neither of those web browsers have been current for more than 10 years!

For such an important and common business process as registering an ABN the responsible agency needs to take a little more care in its online delivery of services.

Otherwise their online services will damage trust and respect in the government's ability to deliver and cause customers to migrate to what are slower and (for agencies) higher cost channels.

I'll bring this issue to the attention of the responsible agency, the Australian Tax Office, and check back in six months to see if anything has changed.

For all other government agencies out there, please check that your public online systems aren't needlessly damaging your credibility in this way. Please make sure your websites work for modern users!

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Thursday, January 19, 2012

Is it time for government to take Google Plus seriously?

Often in government there's only two social media networks discussed and considered for community engagement and communications, Facebook and Twitter.

MySpace is a distant memory, LinkedIn is used just for resumes and services like FourSquare, Plurk, Ning and others are not well-known.

Also not that well known is Google Plus, and perhaps rightly so - it is very new and still quite small in social media terms, only around 62 million users, although it is predicted to grow to over 293 million by the end of 2012, or so Google believes.

However with the recent integration of Google Plus into Google search, it may be time for governments to consider establishing Google Plus channels alongside Facebook and Twitter, due to the impact on search results.

With Google's search tool holding close to 90% of Australia's search market, it is a more dominant 'publisher' than News Limited - and remains the number one website in Australia. Search engines are also the primary source of traffic for Australian government websites, with an average of over 40% of visitors reaching government sites from a search engine (according to Hitwise) - and therefore around 36% coming direct from Google.

So what has Google done? According to Gizmodo, they've integrated Google Plus into their search product in three ways,
First, it now provides "Personal Results" which include media—photos, blog posts, etc—that have been privately shared with you as well as your own stuff. Any images you've set to share using Picasa will also be displayed. Second, Google Search will now auto-complete queries to people in your circles and will display people who might also be interested in what you're searching for in the search results. Finally, it simplifies the process of finding other Google+ profiles for people or specific interest groups based on your query. So if you search for, say, NASA, it will display Google+ profile pages for NASA and space-related Google+ interest groups in addition to the normal results.
Whether you believe this is a good move, a legal move, or not, it does provide opportunities for organisations to leverage Google Plus to improve their overall presence in Google search by operating a Google Plus account.

It's certainly something to keep an eye on, if not actively consider. 

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Monday, September 12, 2011

When will we see true my.gov?

I've been watching, and participating, in some of the discussions around whether government agencies and entire governments should centralise or decentralise their web presence.

For some reason a number, such as the UK government, South Australia and the ACT, have decided that centralising all their websites into a single portal is the right approach, although I've seen little in way of clear benefits to citizens or government.

At the same time some agencies still follow a route of rolling out a new website for every initiative, program and event, leaving some agencies with hundreds of websites to manage.

Totalling the number of websites can be deceptive. With a single content management system at the back-end, single set of servers and bandwidth and nothing more than different design templates it is possible to release many websites with little additional cost impact. In this situation, whether the content is in one site or many, it requires almost the same effort to create and maintain.

I believe that the argument over one or many websites really misses the entire point of the exercise - to serve the public.

If we stop thinking about centralise/decentralise and begin thinking audience, how would we build and maintain the web presence, not web site(s), for a government or agency?

I've been thinking about this recently with a view to the capabilities that web 2.0 brings.

Rather than building websites around agencies, portfolios, topics or governments, why not simply provide a my.gov.au framework which can be customised to every individual citizen's needs and demographics?

Agencies could publish information in 'fragments' or 'parts' with appropriate metadata. This would allow my.gov.au to selective and display the content, services, social channels and news from government appropriate to an individual.

With this approach the entire equation is flipped. No longer are agencies or governments solely deciding what they want citizens to see. Instead citizens are presented with what they need, based on their age, gender, location, work status, interests, past behaviour and other characteristics.

Individual agencies would not need to each collect information about individuals to provide a custom online experience. They simply become content providers, with the central my.gov.au portal storing any personal information and pulling the right content (as tagged by agencies) without sharing the information with other agencies.

This approach could expand beyond a single government, integrating local planning alerts, state government services and other relevant content in a single seamless interface.

This would remove the need for citizens to go to multiple 'single sites' for different government levels. As the user is in control of my.gov.au there's no need for agencies at different levels to have their systems working together for content or sign-on - the my.gov.au framework would simply pull content and services into the common personalised interface for each person.

The system could also expand beyond government - integrating your banking and medical records and more into the same view. This would become a real killer application. See your bank and salary information as you figure out how much you need to pay government over the year ahead. Of course, none of the services viewed through the personalised page would 'talk' to each other, only to my.gov.au, preserving privacy and security.

The my.gov.au service wouldn't even have to be built and managed by governments - competing services could be developed commercially and compete - through enhancements and features - for the 'business' of citizens, all drawing on the same set of government content and data feeds.

So perhaps it is time for government to stop talking about 'one website to rule them all' and instead consider what we could achieve if we let our content out of its departmental and government 'wrappers'.

We could enable a true personalised my.gov.au service for every citizen, customised to their specific needs and wants, growing with them through various life events over a number of years.

And we could still aggregate the same content into our corporate sites, or a single portal if we chose, at no extra cost!

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Monday, June 06, 2011

Talking about Twitter

Thanks to links from John Sheridan (@sherro58) and Kerry Webb (@kwebb), I've been reading some of the latest articles and blog posts talking about Twitter.

They attempt to analyse and 'place' Twitter on the spectrum of human communication - discussing whether the service is more like text or like speech.

They also discuss the potential impacts of Twitter and other digital mediums on our brain chemistry and behaviour (which, incidentally, are affected by everything we do and learn).

I personally believe the best analogy to Twitter is thinking, not speech or text.

Twitter involves millions of individuals sharing small pieces of data at irregular intervals.  Taken together they form a mechanical stream of consciousness, layers of data, thoughts and experiences, most of it occurring outside of the conscious level of Twitter users (who don't follow these accounts or simply aren't looking at Twitter at the right time).

Many tweets - pieces of data - simply flow through the system and disappear, much like random thoughts.

However some contain data with interesting information pieces, such as news stories and events. These trigger some individual to click through to the full article in a webpage or video - a 'memory'.
 At other times Tweets form into conversations, between individuals or groups - frequently under a hashtag. While many of these conversations end unresolved, some build new knowledge on existing information or otherwise generate new ideas, leading to a further cascade of realisations.


The goal of all of these tweets is not necessarily to be lasting monuments to human achievement, or even to be relevant to most Twitter users. Some are signposts to more comprehensive content, memory markers for the web, others are processes of rationalisation, realisation or decision-making, or instant reports and analysis on 'now'.

If humans developed mechanical telepathy and connected several hundred million people together I believe the flow of content would not be dissimilar to the flow of information and dross across Twitter.

In fact, if we invented mechanical telepathy, Twitter might be a excellent medium for the transition of ephemeral and fast changing thoughts, using tools like hashtags to tie together sequences.


I've attached links to the pieces John and Kerry brought to my attention below, together with several student views on Twitter and several interesting infographics:

Thoughts about Twitter from several students in the Advanced Broadcast Journalism course at the University of Canberra:
Twitter Infographics:

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    Wednesday, February 03, 2010

    Google to end support for Internet Explorer 6 during 2010

    Google has announced that it will progressively end support for Microsoft Internet Explorer 6 during 2010 - beginning with Google Docs and Sites in March. Youtube, another Google company, is also phasing out support.

    Announced in the Google Enterprise blog post last week, Modern browsers for modern applications, Google Apps Senior Product Manager, Rajen Sheth, said that the web had evolved in the last ten years from simple text pages to rich interactive applications and that very old web browsers cannot run these new features effectively.

    This approach isn't limited to Google. A number of companies have already dropped support for Internet Explorer 6.0 in their online applications and more, including Facebook and Digg, plan to drop it in the near future.

    Microsoft (up to CEO level) have also advocated dropping the IE6 web browser for their latest version, Internet Explorer 8.


    EDIT at 8:10AM 3/2/09:
    Nick Hodge, a Microsoft staff member, has commented on this post that Microsoft is also progressively dropping IE6 support, saying that Microsoft has,
    dropped support for IE6 in Sharepoint 2010 and the forthcoming web versions of Word, Excel, Powerpoint and OneNote 2010; plus live@edu and other web properties. 
    END EDIT

    However, to support its customers, as there are a number of major corporations still tied to the ageing browser, Microsoft recently extended support for IE6 until April 2014, when all support for Windows XP ends.

    Given the recent severe security issues reported with IE6 and the increasing proportion of the internet unavailable to those using the 2001 vintage web browser, I hope to see the remaining organisations migrating away from the browser in the near future.

    It is estimated that only 20% of web users - predominantly workers in large organisations - still use IE6, however up to 50% of Chinese internet users are still on the web browser.

    Reportedly Microsoft's Internet Explorer web browser has been losing market share at least 2004, when it reached 90% of the market. According to Wikipedia's Usage share of web browsers article, it is now estimated (through tracking subsets of internet users) that only about 60% of internet users are on one of the Internet Explorer variants, with Firefox 3.5 having overtaken IE8 as the most popular browser by version.

    Some commentators expect to see Microsoft's share of the web browser market fall below 50% by mid-2011.

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    Thursday, October 01, 2009

    Adapt the service not the user

    I've been rereading the ABC article about the two girls who got caught in a drain and used their mobile phone to update their Facebook status, rather than call Triple 0.

    A representative of the Metropolitan Fire Service (MFS) in Adelaide said that,

    If they were able to access Facebook from their mobile phones, they could have called triple-0, so the point being they could have called us directly and we could have got there quicker than relying on someone being online and replying to them and eventually having to call us via triple-0 anyway.
    Professor of Media and Communications at the Queensland University of Technology, Terry Flew, says public education campaigns are facing an ongoing struggle to compete with social media.

    I think that the main point has been missed.

    The internet and digital devices are changing cultural and personal behaviours. In some respects they are even changing our physical behaviour and may be changing our brain chemistry.

    I don't believe that it is the role of Public Authorities to try to turn the clock back by 'competing' with social media - reinforcing messages such as if you're in trouble call triple-0 - just to preserve the 'way the system has always worked'.

    In usability terms this is similar to releasing a human-unfriendly system, then producing a huge user manual and communications campaign to attempt to train people to work the way the system works (except in this case the system remains the same and it is people who have changed).

    Often it is cheaper and more effective to turn this approach on its head. Re-engineer the system to work the way that people think.

    Successful companies have learnt this. They change their products over time to suit emerging social and cultural norms. It's a Marketing-based approach, where the organisation figures out what people want and provides it, rather than a Communications-based approach, where you build products the way the organisation wants then try to convince people to accept them.

    The lesson I draw from this emergency situation is that the public service are still grappling with the questions of whether and how to adapt their systems to suit their audiences.

    For the girls down the drain it may have been faster for them to call Triple-0, however this wasn't the behaviour they are used to. It was not 'normal' in fact they've probably never done it before.

    So why not adapt our emergency services instead?

    Have a presence on social networks that people can use to contact them in emergencies.

    Create smartphone apps that people can install and use to send the information the emergency services need to act.

    Set up Twitter accounts that can be used to call for help.

    Even simply point '911' to '000' so either number reaches our emergency services - most Australians hear '911' far more often in movies and on TV than they ever hear 'Triple-0'. The original rationale of '000' being less likely to be dialed in error due to being more difficult to call on dial phones has disappeared anyway with keypads.

    Some of these avenues may be 'less efficient' for the system. They may increase the time required for emergency services to response.

    However they will ensure that the emergency services CAN respond.

    It may even increase the number of people who legitimately contact emergency services - those who wouldn't call Triple-0, but will put a note on Facebook that, for example, they are feeling suicidal.

    Certainly checks and balances will need to be in place to prevent fraudulent use, but we managed to do it with a telephone number - surely we're smart enough to do this in other mediums.


    The issue of adapting services versus adapting users isn't unique to emergency services, it affects every interaction between government and public.

    Every time the government forces people to use the channel it prefers - be it telephone, paper, in-person (or even online) - it is attempting to adapt the user to suit its own processes and needs.

    This can reduce citizen engagement, satisfaction and completion rates, resulting in poorer outcomes for individuals.

    Instead the government should seek to understand how people prefer to engage and seek ways to adapt its services to suit peoples' needs. AGIMO's report, Australians' use and satisfaction with e-government services—2008, provides some ideas.

    Sure there are many cases where it may be legally impossible to accept channels like the net for transactions with government. However there are many services where we can adapt - it just takes a little creative thinking. We may even save the public money or provide a faster service and we will not be 'competing' with social networks, we'll be leveraging them for public benefit.

    Let's seek to change our public sector philosophies and adapt government policies and services wherever possible, rather than attempt to adapt our users to suit 'how we prefer to do things'.

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    Wednesday, August 05, 2009

    Building a business case to move from IE6 to a modern web browser

    Here's some notes useful for a business case justifying an upgrade from Internet Explorer 6 to a more modern web browser that I prepared last week for a colleague at another organisation.

    It supports the priority in Australia 2 to Upgrade all government web browsers.

    Please add to them in the comments if you see points I've missed.

    Goal
    Encourage a government Department to upgrade from Microsoft Internet Explorer 6 (IE6) to an industry supported web browser.

    Background
    The IE6 web browser was originally released by Microsoft in 2001.

    Over the last eight years it has been updated twice, Internet Explorer 7 was released in October 2006 and Internet Explorer 8 in March 2009 (with developer previews available since March 2008).

    Since 2001 the entire web browser market has changed. Netscape ceased developing Navigator (in December 2007) and new browsers entered the market including Apple's Safari in November 2003 (version 4 released June 2009), Mozilla Firefox in November 2004 (version 3.5 released June 2009) and Google Chrome in December 2008.

    These entrants, and the long-standing Opera web browser, have significantly driven innovation in the market.

    IE6 support
    The IE6 browser, being two versions behind, is no longer supported by Microsoft and is in rapid decline in community usage.

    Major websites and organisations are progressively ceasing support for IE6, meaning that increasing numbers of websites are not accessible using the browser. For example, Google, the top accessed website in Australian and across the world, has advised that it will no longer be supporting IE6 for its applications.

    A campaign to encourage people to shift away from IE6 has been operating online for several years with significant success and has support from Microsoft’s CEO, Steve Balmer, who stated that,

    Microsoft recommends end users that are browsing the web with Internet Explorer 6 to upgrade today to benefit from numerous improvements including security features and usability enhancements.

    Interoperability is key to enabling developers to continue to create great user experiences on the web. Our commitment to the technical community continues with our significant investment in Internet Explorer 8.

    We continue to believe in the importance of supporting the end users and encourage the technical community to work with us in securing a good transition for the users that today are using IE6.
    Web standards
    IE6 does not adhere to web standards as defined by the WSG and as reflected within the Acid2 test.

    As stated in Wikipedia's page about Acid2,
    Acid2 tests aspects of HTML markup, CSS 2.1 styling, PNG images, and data URIs. The Acid2 test page will be displayed correctly in any application that follows the World Wide Web Consortium and Internet Engineering Task Force specifications for these technologies. These specifications are known as web standards because they describe how technologies used on the web are expected to function.
    Internet Explorer 8, Firefox 3 and Safari 2+ all successfully pass the Acid2 test. IE6 and IE7 fail to pass the Acid2 test (as did earlier versions of other web browsers).

    This test will eventually be supplanted by the Acid3 test, which is currently only passed by Safari 4, Opera 10 beta and Chrome 3.0.17.

    It is not yet necessary for organisations to use Acid3 compliant web browsers as not all the test conditions within Acid3 have been passed by the W3C at this time.

    Browser market shares
    IE6 is currently in rapid decline, with the primary users being organisations who have not yet upgraded to more modern web browsers. Home users have predominantly upgraded to more modern web browsers.

    It is estimated that Internet Explorer has between 52 and 74% web browser market share in July 2009 depending on the specific measurement site (source: Usage share of web browsers). Firefox has between 18 and 31%, Safari 2.6 - 4.1%, Chrome up to 3.1% and Opera up to 3.3%.

    Internet Explorer 6 is estimated at having 15 - 25% market share globally. However in Australia this share is reportedly much lower, at around 9% (StatCounter)

    Benefits of an upgrade
    • Moves the organisation to a supported web browser,
    • greater compatibility with web standards,
    • future-proofs the organisation's web browsing for several years (as major sites cease IE6 support),
    • aligns staff with citizens' use of the internet - statistics for Australian web use show that the Australian public predominantly use modern browsers,
    • provides a greater level of security whilst browsing,
    • supports tabbed browsing (opening multiple pages in one master window),
    • allows use of modern web features within the organisation's intranet,
    • there is no product cost for an upgrade from IE6 to a modern web browser.
    Risks of upgrading
    • Some legacy internal systems may not be fully interoperable with modern web browsers,
    • security impacts will need to be investigated to ensure there is no increased risk of systems penetration,
    • greater ability to access modern websites may increase internet use for work purposes - thereby increasing network load.
    Risks of not upgrading
    • Political risk for Minister if questions asked within parliament on reasons for use of old and unsupported technology (as is already occurring in the UK),
    • organisation will continue falling further behind current web standards,
    • organisation will progressively lose access to key online services as they cease IE6 support,
    • greater security risks due to less security in IE6 than more recent web browsers,
    • increasing difficulty in upgrading internal systems that require web browsers as modern versions of content management systems and other web-based solutions are less and less likely to support IE6,
    • need to invest in optimising (dumbing down) the organisation's websites for IE6 simply to support staff,
    • difficulties in meeting web standards if testing cannot be conducted on modern, web standards compliant, web browsers.

    Read full post...

    Monday, March 16, 2009

    What does the future look like?

    Microsoft have developed a Future Visions series to provide some insight into where technology is headed, and how it will help people.

    If you are looking to anticipate the needs of your customers, rather than simply play catch-up, the series provides some very thought provoking ideas.

    Here is the montage video, exploring different concepts in brief. Below I've placed links to the full videos on each topic.



    And in case you think this technology is still a long way off, read this article from the Inquisitor, If You Want the Future, Look to the Hackers. It talks about companies placing working brainjacks into people's heads, and how to create a Minority Report-style interface using your Nintendo Wii.

    The others videos in the Microsoft Future Vision series are:

    Read full post...

    Friday, February 20, 2009

    How can we do better? Mobile web is just like desktop web from 1998 - Nielsen

    Jakob Nielsen, often considered one of the world's leading thinkers on usability, has discussed the mobile web in his latest Alertbox monthly update, equalling the state of mobile websites today as similar to the state of the desktop internet in 1998.

    I tend to agree that for many organisations this is the case, with Nielsen's comments all hitting close to the mark - abysmal success rates in users achieving their goals, pages requiring too long to download and featuring too much bloat, code crashes and excessive scrolling.

    I've blogged previously about the need for government to begin more seriously considering and positioning for the importance of mobile sites. The growth of larger screen (and touchscreen) smartphones has finally turned mobile devices into an acceptable platform for web browsing.

    A major point Nielsen raised was that many mobile sites are still being designed like desktop sites, just as in 1998 when websites were being designed like print brochures (ala brochureware).

    This is a trend I've discussed previously - each new medium is first defined in terms of the paradigm of the last.

    For instance, when television was introduced, programs were first structured like radio shows, and further back when movies were introduced they were structured like stage shows. The initial radio programs often consisted of an announcer reading the local newspaper on air.

    It takes some time for society to begin to understand the true value of a medium and look on it as a new and distinct form, rather than as an extension of an older form.

    This causes me to reflect on what the mobile medium will eventually become. Defining it in terms of a 'mobile internet' may be too limiting, too caught in the desktop internet paradigm.

    Mobile devices have their own characteristics, strengths and weaknesses. For a government organisation - or any organisation to use these to best advantage, they must look at the specifics of the platform, not simply port their website to mobile (as they ported their publications to online).

    Some of the obvious strengths of mobile include;
    geo-location - it knows where you are
    interaction time - people interact with mobile devices 24/7, whereas desktops require a conscious action
    voice integration - voice communications can be embedded easily into the platform
    photo and video capture - people can take photos and video anywhere, all the time

    Some of the obvious disadvantages include;
    Small screen size - makes displaying complex information more difficult
    Short interactions - people make many more interactions with mobile devices, but most are only a few minutes in duration. Try concentrating on a mobile screen for an hour
    reception quality - can vary enormously, making some online-only applications less usable
    small keyboards - makes sustained typing more difficult
    Many different platforms - there's less uniformity of screen size and internet capability (including cost of access) than on desktops, where there are a few dominant players

    When developing a mobile site taking these factors into consideration will help your organisation develop more than a simple mobile port of your website, but a custom experience that helps people complete the different types of tasks they wish to complete on a mobile device.

    So when you get your senior management across the line on having a mobile version of your website, ensure you also take them on the journey to understand that a simple reformat of existing content, navigation and functionality probably will not deliver the best result for your customers and stakeholders.

    There's an opportunity to step beyond the desktop paradigm and deliver a mobile experience with real value. I challenge you to take it!

    Read full post...

    Friday, January 09, 2009

    How long does it take to adopt new ideas in government?

    Often those of us within government, and those on the outside, can form an impression that the process of change, innovation and the adoption of new ideas in government can be very slow.

    However sometimes it is worth a reality check - while the world appears to be moving extremely fast, in some ways really it isn't.

    A great case in point is this article from Harvard Business publishing, The Greatest Product Demo Ever and What to Learn From It.

    It talks about the first presentation of the mouse, hyperlink, hierarchical lists and other concepts that most of us now use regularly - 40 years later.

    Most of these ideas, demonstrated by Douglas Engelbart, took at least a generation to become popular. Some, such as the chord keyboard (must faster and easier to use than the QWERY keyboards we use use from the earliest days of typewriters), have never become popular.

    So when we look at the speed of internet development compared to the speed most of the world is moving, perhaps organisations aren't moving that slowly.

    After all organisations are made up of people and people can be very slow to change.

    Read full post...

    Friday, December 26, 2008

    WebAim conducting survey on screen reader usage

    WebAim is currently conducting a survey looking at the usage of screen readers and the personal experiences of their users.

    If you're a user of a screen reader, or are interested in accessibility for vision-impaired people and use of screen readers (as all government web and intranet managers should be), the survey is available from the Webaim blog post, Screen Reader Survey.

    There's some interesting comments already on the issues around use of captcha technology (even audio equivalents).

    Results will be published in a few months.

    Read full post...

    Wednesday, September 17, 2008

    A glimpse at the future of the semantic web

    Fresh+New, a blog written by Seb Chan from the Powerhouse Museum, has brought to my attention Aza Raskin’s Ubiquity, a very interested look at the possible web of the future, using semantic browsers to provide a more connected experience.


    More details are in Seb's post, More powerful browsers - Mozilla Labs Ubiquity, or on Aza's blog.

    Below is the video introducing Ubiquity.

    Ubiquity for Firefox from Aza Raskin on Vimeo.

    Read full post...

    Tuesday, September 02, 2008

    First pic of Google Chrome

    CNET has published what looks to be the first picture of the Google Chrome browser in an article, Google Chrome update: First screenshot, and live-blog alert.

    The release looks to be scheduled for 11am US Pacific time.

    Read full post...

    Ready for the Google Chrome web browser?

    Google is releasing the beta of its first web browser on Tuesday 2 September - US time, and if the media information Google has released is accurate, the product could reshape the face of web browsing over the next few years.

    Google Chrome is the company's first foray into the web browsing market - but represents a step to the left and a jump to the right of previous web browsing technologies.

    The fully open source browser implements a range of new features to speed up browsing, reduce the impact of malware and prevent browser crashes - it's more of an operating platform for web applications than a window for viewing web pages.

    Google's media release (shaped in the form of a comic) explains the features extremely well for a lay person, and has me quite excited as to the possibilities the browser opens for web developers.

    The beta, set to be released on Tuesday - US time - appears to me and to others to be aimed squarely at Microsoft, taking the wind out of their build-up to Internet Explorer 8, which went into public beta last week.

    Strategically, in my view, this is a great move for Google.

    What does this mean for government web managers
    More options requiring support
    The first thing it means is that there are likely to be three major browsers to support over the next few years, Internet Explorer (in various versions), Firefox and Google Chrome - with some minor players including Safari and Opera.

    Later note: Google Chrome is using the same (open source) rendering engine as Apple's Safari, which should simplify part of the process of supporting the browser.

    Need to quickly review and align code to preserve user experience
    Given Google's
    search dominance I expect a fast initial take-up rate, with up to 15 percent of website users trialing the product in the next few months (I'll reflect back on this in two months to see how accurate I was).

    This means that website managers need to take a look at the rendering engine used by Google (WebKit) and ensure that their sites are compliant. Otherwise they may see falling traffic or increased help desk calls as users struggle to use forms and other functionality.

    More ability to move functionality online
    The new browser opens a number of new possibilities for website managers, with multi-threaded javascript allowing more complex and faster web applications. This opens the playing field for better web-based tools, allowing more functionality to move online.

    It also, in part, ensures that Google's own stable, including Google Docs, Gmail, Blogger, Youtube and Gears, will run faster and more efficiently (sound familiar? Microsoft has a similar ecosystem with Windows and Microsoft applications).

    Read full post...

    Friday, August 22, 2008

    Website/intranet redesign or realignment - is there good reason for change?

    My team's web designer forwarded me the article Good Designers Redesign, Great Designers Realign from A List Apart earlier this week.

    It looks at the justification behind design decisions - whether to change the design, layout and information architecture of a website or product - dividing it into two camps.

    Redesigners - who base their decision on emotional responses to aesthetics.

    It’s been 2 years since our last redesign.
    Our current stuff just looks old.
    A redesign would bring new traffic to the site.

    Realigners - who based their decision on strategic objectives and user needs.
    Market trends have shifted. Should our website be adjusted accordingly?
    Our users’ needs have changed. Do we need to adapt?
    We’ve added 3 new sections and a slew of new content to the site over the last 12 months. Are we presenting content as effectively as we can?
    Our current website does little to convey the strength of our product offering.
    Does our online presence enhance or devalue our overall brand perception?
    I don't believe the line is ever that clear cut, sometimes aesthetics are used to sell strategic changes and sometimes vice versa. I also do not agree that realigners are 'better' designers (for whatever value of 'better').

    However I do feel the article does touch on a key factor for management, of websites or any other system or people, perceptual versus objective truth.

    Often as web managers we are the closest to our own sites, seeing blemishes that are less visible to others. On the other hand we may also accept and overlook fallacies and faults that others perceive as major flaws. It's a little like being in a relationship. We often simultaneously see more and less in our partner than others can from an external perspective.

    Therefore when deciding whether to make design or IA changes it is crucial to step outside our own emotional engagement and seek the views of our audiences, our peers, management and neutral parties.

    Otherwise we may - knowingly or unknowingly - be primarily driven by our own personal views or emotional responses, while publicly justifying changes based on organisational goals or audience need (or simply on the ultimate reason that 'it looks better').

    I can think of times in the past where for personal or organisational reasons I've redesigned a website or intranet simply due to aesthetics. I can think of more times when there were reasons driven by audience needs or organisational realignment.

    I can also remember times when I made aesthetic choices, but justified them as strategic decisions.

    These are the decisions to be guarded against as they are, in my view, the most likely to lead to errors of judgment.

    It's about being honest with yourself and understanding your own drivers.

    Do you operate as more of a realigner or redesigner?

    What would your peers say?

    Read full post...

    Saturday, July 26, 2008

    Choosing a minimum resolution for a government site

    In the good old days (around 1995), choosing a display resolution for a website was easy. Everyone had 640x480 monitors, so that's what we designed for.

    By 1998 it was a little harder - many, but not all, people had upgraded to 800x600 screens. So if you wanted to target early adopters you could aim high and have all those additional pixels (over 170,000 extra!)

    A few years later 1024x768 was building steam - finally overtaking 800x600 around 2004. However there was not a strong enough case to upgrade - 800x600 was still around 40 percent of the market.

    This year I'm looking at an upgrade to our website's design, and are currently working through one of the most important questions - do we maintain the site at 800x600, or design it for 1024x768 (almost double the display real estate)?

    To help answer this question I've had Google Analytics installed for my agency's website. This gives me a clearer picture of the display resolutions in use by our audience - and was simpler to implement than the method within WebTrends.

    When I had it installed I told our web designer that if 800x600 (and smaller) was less than 5 percent of users, then I could make a case to switch to the higher minimum resolution.

    Anyone using the lower resolution would have access to the same information, but right scrolling would be required.

    After running Analytics for a while the display resolutions have stabilised as follows:

    1024 x 768 - 43.76%
    1280 x 1024 - 17.81%
    1280 x 800 - 12.98%
    800 x 600 - 6.01%
    1440 x 900 - 5.91%
    1680 x 1050 - 3.95%
    1152 x 864 - 3.66%
    1280 x 768 - 1.51%
    1280 x 960 - 1.43%
    1920 x 1200 - 0.69%
    Others - 2.29%

    Now clearly our website users are overwhelmingly using display resolutions larger than 800x600.

    However the number of 800x600 users hasn't quite reduced to my magical 5 percent number.

    So do I maintain a minimum of 800x600 to support the remaining 6 percent of people, but disadvantage the other 94 percent, or do I push forward to a 1024x768 minimum and potentially disadvantage that 6 percent?

    Of course the decision isn't quite that straightforward - a 1024x768 screen doesn't actually offer all that space for a website - there's the browser frame to consider and many people do not maximise their browser screen.

    Also it is possible to develop expanding websites that reconfigure for different resolutions - it just takes longer and costs more.

    But it is an interesting question to consider - what's the official minimum resolution for your website, and why?

    Read full post...

    Monday, June 23, 2008

    Do all your egovernment tools meet accessibility standards?

    In Australia website usability is important, but accessibility is law.

    While most government agencies are extremely diligent about meeting accessibility requirements it is also important to look at the accessibility of any online tools they use that affect their customers or clients.

    For example, my agency uses a third-party email marketing system, Vision6 for electronic newsletters to customers and a US-based survey tool, SurveyMonkey for customer and stakeholder surveys.

    Vision6 is an Australian company and has met all applicable accessibility requirements for a long time. We also make a point of offering plain text versions of all HTML emails we distribute through this tool to further ensure we're providing an email version that customers can readily access.


    SurveyMonkey, being a US system, isn't required by law to meet Australian accessibility standards - although it meets the applicable W3C guidelines on which this was based.

    Previously we used this service as no other web survey platform I had identified met the agency's requirements and was fully Australian standards compliant.

    However they have just been certified as compliant with the US's Section 508 Accessibility requirements, which, according to SurveyMonkey, makes them the only online survey application that is Section 508 certified, as explained in their website, Your survey designs are now 508 compliant!

    This isn't an Australian standard, however it is a very long way towards meeting it.


    If you're unsure what the Australian requirements are, AGIMO's Accessibility section provides a concise and clear explanation.

    If you're not sure how to test for accessibility, WebAIM has a good list of accessibility testing tools and when/how to use them.

    Incidentally, the W3C is getting much closer to the second version of their accessibility guidelines (WCAG 2.0) - after 5 years of work.

    Webcredibility have a review of the new version in their site at WCAG 2.0: The new W3C accessibility guidelines evaluated.

    Read full post...

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