Usability in Government Systems: User Experience Design for Citizens and Public Servants

  • 9h 39m
  • Dianne Murray (eds), Elizabeth Buie
  • Elsevier Science and Technology Books, Inc.
  • 2012

As a usability specialist or interaction designer working with the government, or as a government or contractor professional involved in specifying, procuring, or managing system development, you need this book. Editors Elizabeth Buie and Dianne Murray have brought together over 30 experts to outline practical advice to both usability specialists and government technology professionals and managers.

Working with internal and external government systems is a unique and difficult task because of the sheer magnitude of the audience for external systems (the entire population of a country, and sometimes more), and because of the need to achieve government transparency while protecting citizens' privacy.. Open government, plain language, accessibility, biometrics, service design, internal vs. external systems, and cross-cultural issues, as well as working with the government, are all covered in this book.

  • Covers both public-facing systems and internal systems run by governments
  • Details usability and user experience approaches specific to government websites, intranets, complex systems, and applications
  • Provides practical material that allows you to take the information and immediately use it to make a difference in your projects

About the Editors

Elizabeth Buie has 35 years of experience in information systems, of which over 30 have involved user interfaces, usability, and the user experience. Approximately 90% of her work has involved government systems of one sort or another, both internal and public facing. She has performed research, analysis, specification, design, development, and evaluation of human-computer interaction (HCI) for web sites, web applications, desktop and mainframe applications, and complex systems such as spacecraft control centers and air-traffic control applications. Her experience has also included several years in system engineering, which includes the specification and analysis of system and software requirements and the integration of the HCI process into the system lifecycle. She has Master's degrees in Mathematics and in Human Development, extensive technical and nontechnical writing experience, and proficiency in the Italian language. She serves on the editorial board of the UPA's online Journal of Usability Studies and served for several years on the editorial board of ACM's interactions magazine. She plans to begin a PhD program in October of 2012.

In the mid-1990s, Elizabeth initiated the effort to promote awareness of HCI in government systems. She co-chaired a workshop at CHI'95 and a SIG at CHI'96 and was one of the organizers of three symposia at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) on HCI in government.

Dianne Murray has a joint honors degree in Computer Science and Psychology and has been in the HCI field since 1979. Her first career was as a research scientist in one of the first HCI groups in the UK, at the National Physical Laboratory. Her second career was as an HCI and Software Engineering academic, at City University London, Kings College London, and for the University of London International Degree Program. Her third career brought her a Senior Research Fellowship in the Social and Computer Sciences (SCS) Research Group at University of Surrey. Her fourth career as a Usability / HCI consultant with her partner, Neil Sandford, at Putting People Before Computers and her fifth as Editor-in-Chief of the international journal Interacting with Computers: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Human-Computer Interaction (an official publication of the British Computer Society) have taken place in parallel since 1984, when she was a founder member of interaction (originally the British HCI Group).

After working on the design and development of a CBT authoring system she published some of the first research in the now-burgeoning area of adaptivity, user modeling and intelligent interfaces. She been involved with many national and international groups and activities, was International Chair and on the executive committee of ACM SIGCHI for almost ten years, and has frequently acted as an expert Evaluator and Technical Rapporteur for EU research programmes. She has previously edited 2 books of HCI readings and published in both the HCI and CSCW field.

In this Book

  • Foreword
  • Introduction
  • A Brief History of User Experience in Government Systems
  • Usability of Public Web Sites
  • Usability and Government 2.0
  • UX of Transactions
  • Privacy and the Citizen
  • Usability in Defense Systems—Examples from Aviation
  • Emergency Response in Simulated Terrorist Attacks—Usability Lessons Learned
  • National Critical Infrastructures
  • Legislative Drafting Systems
  • Content Strategy
  • Plain Language in Government
  • Ensuring Accessibility for People with Disabilities
  • Mobile Access
  • User Issues in Security
  • Usability of Biometric Systems
  • Getting UX into the Contract
  • ISO Standards for User-Centered Design and the Specification of Usability
  • User-Centered Requirements Definition
  • Models as Representations for Supporting the Development of e-Procedures
  • Evaluation in Government Environments
  • Adapting e-Gov Usability Evaluation to Cultural Contexts
  • Design for Policymaking
  • Service Design and Channel Shifting
  • UX and e-Democracy in Asia
  • Closing Thoughts
  • Acronyms and Abbreviations
  • Glossary of Terms
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