The focus of the project is to investigate how usability can best be applied to the services and resources provided by JISC, with particular reference to the further development of the Information Environment.

Usability Foundation Study and Investigation of Usability in JISC Services


Start date: 9 December 2002

End date: 9 April 2003

Funding programme: Presentation programme

JISC theme(s): Information environment

Introduction  

The focus of the project is to investigate how usability can best be applied to the services and resources provided by JISC, with particular reference to the further development of the Information Environment.  The major deliverables of the work is a Digital Libraries usability and accessibility framework, enabling JISC services to further develop truly usable and accessible services for the higher and further education communities. The study will also apply the framework to a number of JISC services, identifying current issues of usability and accessibility.  

Aim and Objectives  

The project has two core aims:

  • A usability foundation study
  • Usability evaluation of current JISC services

The prime objectives are to:

  • Establish JISC usability requirements
  • Investigate and present a review of appropriate human-computer interaction design methods, techniques and guidelines for JISC services
  • Conduct a study to establish usability criteria and best practices for services and resources similar in nature to those offered by JISC
  • Define clear and workable methodologies and toolkit for usability and accessibility evaluations
  • Conduct requirement elicitation, design generation and evaluations on four JISC services
  • Analyse, disseminate and discuss the outcomes
  • Establish a viable usability and accessibility framework for Digital Libraries

Project Report  

The final report from this study is now available.  It can be downloaded either as a whole document (NB. this is a large file) or in sections, as follows:

The same team has recently also completed a  Visualisation Foundation Study within the Presentation Programme.

project staff

Contact

Dr. Panayiotis Zaphiris
Centre for HCI Design
City University
London
Northampton Square
London EC1V 0HB

Tel:  020 7040 8168
Fax: 020 7040 8859
Email: zaphiri@soi.city.ac.uk  

  • Last updated on 10/09/08 by JISC Comms