The title comes from a recommendation of the Power of Information Taskforce. They commissioned our team at COI to undertake a usability review of government websites, as our mission is to improve the quality and consistency of government and the public sector online.
The usability review found that there were many basic issues with the sites they looked at. Over 150 individual usability problems were identified including:
- Failure to let users know where they are in the site
- Inconsistency in page design putting undue stress on the user to recall rather than recognise (increasing cognitive load)
- Use of language that users couldn’t understand
- Linking to documents without clues to the content within
The Taskforce asked us to build a ‘usability toolkit’ setting out the basic usability criteria for government websites. Working with usability agency Bunnyfoot, we’ve developed a toolkit containing guidelines on best practice. The toolkit has an emphasis on visual learning, making extensive use of graphics and video demonstrations and is designed around eight themes including page layout, navigation and writing content. Each theme has an interactive self-assessment exercise which tests knowledge and is intended to initiate discussion.
The toolkit is open to everyone to use, but there are advantages in registering as this helps users keep track what the content they’ve visited and the assessment tests they’ve completed. So far 85 people have registered from over 20 different departments across government.
The most popular completed test to date is on page layout (123 completed tests). It has guidelines about:
- Consistency between pages
- Devoting page space to content
- Screen resolution
- How to un-clutter content
- Styling text for readability
- Effective use of colour
It’s basic stuff but essential knowledge for anyone developing content for government, public sector, or inideed any other websites. There’s also a great video showing how we read text using eyetracking:
So, if you’re in the public sector, don’t waste another minute, register to use the toolkit! It’s easy, you just need to enter an email address and password and, if you work in central government, your department name.
Usability testing and planning is essential to government websites. I’m in the US but I’m sure the general public in the UK experiences the same frustrations on government websites that we do. I will definitely take a look at your Bunnyfoot toolkit.
You may also be interested in this article from Web Site Magazine that reviews usability tools http://bit.ly/32mqlQ
I am affiliated with http://www.usertesting.com but the article covers several other tools.
Amanda
Amanda McNeill says:
November 25, 2009 at 2:58 amIronic that the registration form doesn’t indicate mandatory fields, a major usability issue. Is the toolkit supposed to be advisory or guidance which Departments MUST follow, obviously with some common sense applied? I ask because under QA & Standards it says to test with certain browsers, strangely including IE5.5. However, this conflicts advice in the COI Browser testing guidelines which talk about developing a matrix and to test “with browsers and operating systems used by 2% or more of your users”.
Darren Taylor says:
December 9, 2009 at 10:30 amHi Darren, thanks for the feedback. I take your point about indicating mandatory fields and will get the registration form sorted out. Embarassingly, we have fallen short of our own standards in this case.
The toolkit is intended primarily as a learning resource. Departments must ensure that their web content developers are schooled in the basics and that’s what we’ve attempted to cover here. Where appropriate the toolkit links back to the relevant COI guidelines.
The browser testing matrix is an example based on the one in the COI guidelines http://coi.gov.uk/guidance.php?page=217#section5b which is in turn based on the BBC’s matrix at the time of writing. However, you are right to question its appearance in the toolkit. It might be better to link back to the guidelines, particularly given the rate of change in browser technologies.
It actually says that IE5.5 “should” be tested and that IE6 & IE7 “must” be tested, in line with the COI guidelines. But I must stress that this is merely an example based on the BBC’s matrix. For a given site, the logs should be inspected to determine the most popular browsers. Coding to standards is also essential and the matrix must include a standards compliant browser.
Adam Bailin says:
December 9, 2009 at 12:40 pmI found that in most of the government site that they are not so reliable and convenient to use.
Bella Mendes says:
August 19, 2010 at 11:19 am