Cost cutting is a fact of life across public and private sectors. At some point every few years (or every year in some cases) organisations decide that the most effective way to improve productivity or profits is to reduce expenditures. Intranets are a common target of cost cutting, either by delaying improvements to infrastructure, cancelling…
I have participated in the beta testing of software for over 20 years now – it’s a great way to get an early look at new developments and to have a level of influence over the development process as a customer (in one case I was even hired as the lead designer on a subsequent…
My team has been throwing around approaches for improving our internal agency staff directory on the intranet to make it more of a knowledge resource for staff. As this is the most used tool in our intranet (people need to contact other people), improving the service contributes measurably to our staff’s capacity to collaborate and…
According to the NextGov article Air Force opens bidding for virtual air base, the US Air Force is preparing to launch a virtual air base where airmen will attend courses in a 3D virtual world.Simulators have long been used in training pilots and astronauts, due to the fatal consequences of mistakes by novices. This air…
In the last few years I’ve witnessed the rise and rise of design and particularly usability/user experience design as a professional area. In the mid-90s, when I was conducting wireframe-based user testing, observing user behaviour in applications and asking users which functionality was most important to them before building websites, there was low awareness in…
On Friday the Disability Discrimination Commissioner, Graeme Innes, at the Australian Human Rights Commission released a media statement, Climate change secretariat excludes people with disabilities, indicating the Commmision was prepared to ‘out’ government publishers who did not meet Australia’s mandatory accessibility requirements for online material. “I recently said that, if things did not start to…
The US has had a number of voting dramas over the last ten years, probably none so well documented as that of the Florida recount in the 2000 Presidential election that saw George Bush Jnr win. As a result of the paper ballet issues uncovered by this and other elections, the US has introduced e-voting systems,…
The Economist Intelligence Unit has published a special research report, Towards Seamless Administration (PDF), on the status and challenges of egovernment across South-East Asia, including commments on a number of Australia’s nearest neighbours such as New Guinea, East Timor, Singapore and Malaysia. While Australia and New Zealand are not included in the review, the maturity…
It’s still unclear to me whether a national version of Fuelwatch will be launched due to the political discussions underway (the WA version is at www.fuelwatch.com.au), however a US site named Fuelly has turned the concept on its head to create a useful user-centric site, which would lend itself effectively to extending a Fuelwatch-style approach.Fuelly,…
The Securities Exchange Commission (SEC) in the US is investigating the legalities of website linking, putting forward a policy proposal stating that companies should be held liable for linking to other sites containing information related to their share value. Basically, if a link from a company’s website pointed to false or misleading information about the…
This archive mirrors the original eGov AU blog — Craig’s professional commentary on AI, digital government and technology in public life, running since 2006.
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