sudhakar lahade — Sat, 14 Apr 2007 15:03:49 GMT

I think you article is thought provoking and very interesting one. At the same time we must appreciate the fact that government is taking the first step of moving towards e-Gov initiative.

The E-Gov initiative and Universal design / usability is very similar to chicken and egg situation. Which comes first?

And the answer is “from where are you looking at?”

Form a system’s perspective both are equally important. But, that does not necessarily answer what comes first?

The true answer is: build the engine first, with basic concept of usability in place.

If you look back in to the history of computers and software development, you will find that initial tools were not very user centered. With time they evolved and became more user-centered. Initial computer systems / tools were very basic supporting the basic needs and were targeted towards advanced users. From that point the initial focus on documentation, interoperability, network, information security, accessibility, etc. is just as the first step.

But, then can we stop at the first step itself. Of course NOT!

If the E-Gov initiative is useful, it has to be equally usable.

Therefore it is very important to understand “who is this user?” we are talking about. In this context the so called user group is very complex and diverse, with varied technology / educational / experience / cultural background.

This leads to something called Social Design. We must have the basic concept of usability in place. Mind well, it need not be perfect (as there is none!) and ready to quickly learn and improve the usability model as the system is in use / evolves.

We must not forget the fact that users keep evolving with the influence of exposure, new technologies, lifestyles and other factors; such as social, cultural, political, etc. and we must be ready to quickly adopt and improvise. Or else highly usable things of today can easily become unusable and redundant, tomorrow.

Therefore there has to be element of Universal Design and Usability in the overall E-Gov initiative, right from the beginning. Or else this whole initiative may fail in no time. But at the same time we can not be adamant about starting from “user end”, as the end user is a moving and nebulous target, at least at this time.

1. We must accept that fact that whichever comes first, both the chicken and egg are integral part of the system. So, we have to include Usability and Universal Design as integral part of E-Gov initiative.
2. We should be flexible enough to work with quick prototypes, fail early, learn quickly and evolve a Human-Centered, usable and robust system through Social Design principles.

Durgaprasad Vemula — Sat, 14 Apr 2007 15:03:53 GMT

Interesting article, it could have been even better if your paper had discussed the “Common Industry Format (CIF)” which is now codified as a both a ISO & ANSI standard as is broadly accepted as way for buyers of software & software services to make more informed buying decisions based on the usability of the product.

From my perspective making some of these standards as a mandatory part of the buying/ tendering/ technical evaluation process would ensure universal usability.

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