Welcome to April's edition of USEworthy. In this issue, we present the results of The Usability Company's report on the usability issues encountered by over 50's or "Silver Surfers" on financial sites. The report was carried out in February 2003 to determine whether this often ignored part of the online community had any specific problems finding suitable products in the financial services market.
 

We present Marty Carroll, Director of Usability's opinion piece on web analytics and usability research, which was carried in The New Media Age, March 27. In addition, David Bomphrey, Senior Usability Consultant at The Usability Company discusses the importance of bearing usability in mind when designing a site that uses graphics.

March was a busy and eventful month at The Usability Company with a major collaboration with the Royal National Institute of The Blind, RNIB, new business wins and a new addition to our team. We cover these events and more in the Company News section of this newsletter.

The Usability Company and The Royal National Institute of The Blind, RNIB, are now working together to offer organisations a fast track toward achieving accessibility accreditation. The See It Right accreditation has been developed by the RNIB and is the only independent evaluation of a websites' accessibility to disabled users. To date the only way to achieve the accreditation was to book an Audit through the RNIB. RNIB has been heavily involved in promoting the issue of website accessibility for a number of years and have made considerable gains in raising awareness. The amendment to the Disability Discrimination Act (DDA) early in 2002 has also further brought focus to the issue by making it a legal requirement for websites to be accessible.

The fast track service will provide an alternative channel for organisations seeking to make their sites accessible by utilising The Usability Company's additional resources. Organisations can now apply for the RNIB's See It Right logo through The Usability Company and benefit from a fast track process that allows them to receive the logo faster. The Usability Company will manage the accreditation process on behalf of the RNIB to RNIB standards. This working relationship is borne out of The Usability Company's support of the RNIB's commitment to making sites accessible to all groups of people. An inaccessible site can exclude millions of people including older customers (10.7 million people according to Age Concern), customers with sight problems (2 million people according to the RNIB), generally disabled people (8.5 million people according to The Office of National Statistics). By gaining accessibility accreditation, companies are not only taking a moral and ethical stance, but they are also increasing the level of loyalty to their site, avoiding angering customers, and making themselves more competitive by reaching a larger audience. It is estimated that 15-30% of the population have some kind of functional usability that can affect their ability to use websites.

The Usability Company is delighted to announce the appointment of Funmi Tomisin as Marketing Manager.

Upcoming Events

The Usability Company is launching its Accessibility Training Course this month. This course covers the most important issues surrounding accessibility on the Internet and Intranet. It guides the attendees in negotiating the complex and changing area of accessibility. There have been several scare stories of companies being sued for lack of accessibility on their sites and the WAI guidelines have often been criticised for being overly complex and difficult to implement. Combined with the lack of practical experience and knowledge in this emerging arena, there is much confusion about whether to implement accessibility guidelines, which ones to implement and how to do this on a practical level.

The main aim of this course is to make sense of web accessibility by aggregating all of the current guidelines, issues, legislations and case studies. Attendees will gain a clear understanding of the digital accessible arena: the key issues from a business, legal, technical and moral standpoint, the key guidelines and real world examples of problems and solutions. We shall also advice on implementing a simple, practical and effective approach to accessibility within organisations and projects. Through the course, The Usability Company intends to provide sufficient understanding of accessibility issues to help managers arrive at the right questions to ask experts and understand the answers!

For more information on this course including dates and price, please email

And Finally...

Marty Carroll, Director of Usability at The Usability Company, will be speaking at the Government Internet Forum on Usability Analytics, 10 April. Marty Carroll will take an in-depth look at Usability and web analytics. Starting with a core definition of usability, he'll look at why usability is so critical, not only for meeting the needs of users but also for justifying Return on Investment. He will provide an analysis of how an Internet Strategy based on performance measurement and a focus on usability offers a justifiable Return on Investment. He will then talk about how to achieve this and what issues need to be addressed. Following his presentati on, Marty will also lead a workshop to explore these issues in more detail.

In February 2003, The Usability Company was asked to undertake usability research on three financial services sites by Financial Marketing magazine. 

There's a question that crops up time and again whenever the commercial benefits of website development are put under the spotlight: how to accurately measure ROI. 

"All too often in web design the experience of the user takes lower priority than other considerations, such as the appearance of the site. An attractive website may impress visitors initially, but this will be short-lived if the site doesn't allow users to accomplish their goals easily- a fact worth bearing in mind where the use of graphics is concerned." Marc Sparrow – Midnight communications.