Matthew Turvey wrote:
> Or you could *find out* what your users really want/need
That means asking what they want to do with the data. Is it to be read by
someone
writing an article that has to be out in an hour? Does someone want to do their
own statistical analysis on the data? Does someone want to find out the
particular
figures for a river they go fishing on? Or do people want to comment on the
data,
to give you feedback on errors, local issues and human needs, as the first step
in
continous consultation?
It helps to get people together and find out first what their goals are, then
the
strategic benefits they hope to get from using your data, before going on to
issues of what technologies they might use. This is a problem we addressed
when studying how community groups used the Internet
(http://www.qub.ac.uk/mgt/cicn/beyond/).
Once you understand their goals and constraints, then you go on to:
> and then test ways
> of delivering it by doing some task analysis and quick n' dirty usability
> testing.
>
> I highly recommend Steve Krug's book "Don't Make me Think! A Common Sense
> Approach to Web Usability" ISBN 0-7897-2310-7:
> http://www.stevekrug.com/buythebook.html
Finally, whatever you do right now, it is worth sponsoring research
projects to come up with something even better in a couple of years
time. Why not become a partner in a consortium proposing to research
public access to environmental information as part of environmental
decision-making, and send the proposal into the European Commission
under the last rounds of Framework V?
--
Dr. David R. Newman, Queen's University Belfast, School of
Management and Economics, Belfast BT7 1NN, Northern Ireland (UK)
mailto:[log in to unmask] Tel. 028 90335011 FAX: 028 90249881
http://www.qub.ac.uk/mgt/staff/dave/
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