Welcome to October’s edition of USEworthy. In this issue, we bring you highlights from our interview with Andrew Pinder, the UK Government’s e-Envoy at this year’s British HCI conference. This is the first in our series of highlights from interviews held at the British HCI conference. In the following months, we shall present excerpts from our interviews with Bob Reegan, who spearheads accessibility at Macromedia and Gordon Smillie, Group Director of Microsoft Enterprise in which he shares Microsoft’s stance on usability and the internal processes Microsoft has put in place to ensure that usability considerations are at the heart of Microsoft product development.
 

In addition, we present a case study illustrating the User Centered Design (User Centered Design) work The Usability Company completed for Camelot on The National Lottery website. The Case study demonstrates how User Centered Design plays an integral role in developing the most appropriate processes and structure for websites to fit specific business and user needs. The User Centered Design work completed for Camelot required a review of subscription and registration processes, customers' personal account management features and the online gaming process in order to determine the best options for processes and structure. Usability Evaluations were also conducted at key stages in order to test the Information Architects's recommendations with real users and to inform the Information Architect and Camelot team in choosing the most appropriate solutions.

We also present an article by Brent Heiggelke, Vice President of Marketing for WebTrends Web Analytics at NetIQ, in which he offers tips on how marketers can dramatically improve marketing success by maximising the opportunities available to marketers through the ability to capture exact information online.

September was a busy month at The Usability Company with members of the company taking part in some exciting and worthwhile speaking engagements. Catriona Campbell, Chairman of The Usability Company chaired the Industry Day of this year’s British HCI conference in Bath. Keynote speakers included Andrew Pinder, the e-Envoy from the Office of the e-Envoy, Gordon Smillie, Group Director of Microsoft Enterprise customers across all verticals, partners and consultancies, Bob Regan, Senior Product Manager for Accessibility at Macromedia and Hiroshi Ishii, tenured Associate Professor of Media Arts and Sciences at the MIT Media Lab.

The Usability Company is delighted to announce that we have received the trademark registration certificate for Usability Analytics®. Through our Usability Analytics® service, our Usability Specialists take website visitor data, interpret it from a usability perspective, and deliver actionable knowledge to rectify issues impacting usability. We have partnered with leading web analytics providers including Net IQ, provider of the leading web analytics solution, WebTrends to ensure that we have in-depth knowledge of the various web analytics tools available. Marty Carroll, Director of Usability Practice at The Usability Company wrote a widely acclaimed and published white paper on Usability and Web Analytics. In the white paper, Marty discusses the key issues and benefits of combining usability and web analytics tools and explains how ROI can be measured and analysed using methods that allow marketing and e-commerce managers to justify, plan and strategise investment in online channels realistically and effectively. For a free copy of the white paper, please go to the resources section of our website and download the “Usability and Web Analytics: ROI justification for an Internet strategy” white paper.

The Usability Company will hold a workshop for government managers in November 2003. We have been gathering feedback from government managers on the specific areas of usability that they wish to investigate in preparation for the workshop that will address these issues and those surrounding the implementation of the key advice given in The Quality Framework for UK Government Website Design, which was launched this July by the Office of the e-Envoy. Catriona Campbell, Chairman of The Usability Company was one of a panel of experts from voluntary, Industry and government sectors and academia that advised on quality issues for the document. Please contact Funmi Tomisin on or email for more information on the upcoming workshop and to reserve your place.

We have been receiving encouraging feedback from attendees of our accessibility training course. Please visit the for more information on the course and comments from clients who have taken the one-day course.

By seizing the online opportunity, companies can create exciting new marketing possibilities. 

Camelot is the operator of the UK National Lottery. Camelot's main objective is to maximise revenue for Good Causes and the Government through lottery games in the most efficient and socially responsible way. 

Government plans to make official websites accessible by anyone could be hit by a cash shortfall.