The Users
As described in chapter 2, the third part of the report is a user test covering general users, the elderly and immigrants.
The test criteria were established by in-depth interviews of 16 individuals performed by consulting company Andreas Lund och Co.. The group was recruited based on lists assembled by the Audit Office with the aid of several organizations working with, and for, pensioners and immigrants. The process is described by Andreas Lund och Co thusly:
... took the form of in-depth, personal, interviews which followed - for the most part - a pre-defined interview-guide [approved by the Audit Office -- Ed.] of the relevant topics. Part of the time the interviewee used a computer and, together with the interviewer, reviewed three different websites (one more thoroughly than the others).
The purpose is described as:
... to
- Give the Audit Office a protocol for use in a more extensive, systematic examination of around a hundred government agency websites
- Reflect the reasoning and motives in a group of immigrants and old-age pensioners when a website is evaluated based on parameters such as complexity of language, use of terms, and accessibility
Test criteria, whilst following on work by the Swedish Agency for Public Management, were established by interviews since:
... established requirements for these groups [the elderly and immigrants] does not exist, we were forced to develop our own ... some of the important questions are:
- What should a user-friendly webpage look like?
- What is a useful amount of information ?
The criteria were then tested by Kulan Akademiker AB by way of three consultants. Two were at the time students at the University of Uppsala, Sweden, one a student at the University of Stockholm.
The consultants went through the 92 websites, giving each a grade between 1 (worst) and 5 (best) in the categories informational value, navigation, ease of comprehension, layout, official feel, and language alternatives.
A personal note
The 16 users all found the site belonging to the Tax Office ( http://www.rsv.se/) very good, informative, and user friendly. As a small business owner, this is a site I have intimate knowledge of. I can not use it at all without replacing my favourite browser. Your mileage will vary.
