Formal Usability Studies = Easy to use websites
Especially on public sites, have an outside qualified User Experience professional do formal usability studies with members of the public to ferret out difficult to understand terminology and have the most frequently sought information ready at hand. This way sites will be understood by the average member of the public and an average member of the public can find what they are looking for quickly. The cost savings ...more »
Especially on public sites, have an outside qualified User Experience professional do formal usability studies with members of the public to ferret out difficult to understand terminology and have the most frequently sought information ready at hand. This way sites will be understood by the average member of the public and an average member of the public can find what they are looking for quickly.
The cost savings to the help desk in reduced number of calls and the public relations benefit in the reduced number of frustrated members of the public will dwarf the cost of the study if the findings are implemented.
I know that some agencies perform usability but if the evaluator is familiar with agency jargon and unit names, their result are not representative of what the public would see. Words that mean one thing within the agency that mean something else when looked up in a dictionary are not caught.
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