en.europa-eu-audience

Mark that e-Page! The Usability of making Notes, Bookmarks, and Highlights in Three E-Readers

See also http://www.surl.org/usabilitynews/132/ereader.asp

Summary. E-Readers, or electronic reading devices, are becoming a household item; however, there exists little research on the usability of these devices. This study investigates the ease-of-use of three e-Readers (iPad, Kindle 2, and Nook 1st Edition) for basic e-Book navigation. Participants (N = 17) were asked to complete a series of book tasks (e.g., opening a book, bookmarking a page, etc.) on the three e-Readers. For each device, participants were asked to rate the task difficulty and the facilitator recorded completion time and number of taps to complete the task. Participants also rated each device in terms of perceived workload and satisfaction. After using all three e-Readers, participants were asked to rank each device on a series of attributes (e.g., screen size, bookmarking, glare, etc.) and overall preference. Results revealed that the iPad was better than the Nook and Kindle on all performance measures, task difficulty, perceived workload, satisfaction, and preference. The only task in which the iPad proved to be more difficult than the Nook and Kindle was the note-making task. Suggestions for improving future e-Readers are discussed. 

iPad Usage Patterns On-the-Go and at Work

Usability News is a free web newsletter that is produced by the Software Usability Research Laboratory (SURL) at Wichita State University. The SURL team specializes in software/website user interface design, usability testing, and research in human-computer interaction.

See http://www.surl.org/usabilitynews/132/iPad.asp

A very good source about usability

Download Usability News 132 - Nguyen

Parliamentary informatics

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parliamentary_informatics

Parliamentary informatics is the application of information technology to the documentation of legislative activity. The principal areas of concern are the provision, in a form conveniently readable to humans or machines, of information and statistics about:

• individual legislators
• particular legislative proposals
• votes thereon
• text of legislation

Parliamentary informatics is carried on both by officials of legislatures and by private for-profit and non-profit actors, with motivations ranging from the administration of parliaments to lobbying and facilitating democratic discourse.

The division of activities between official and unofficial activity differs widely between polities, even within a single country. There exists substantial overlap with disciplines such as psephology and, as far as the text of successfully enacted legislation is concerned, legal informatics in general.

The use of parliamentary informatics is also a rapidly growing trend in parliamentary monitoring. In a September 2011 joint report from the National Democratic Institute and World Bank Institute, a survey of parliamentary monitoring organizations (PMOs) found that parliamentary informatics are used by approximately 40 percent of PMOs worldwide. The report states, "These tools can automatically aggregate and organize information from parliamentary websites and other information sources, generate visualizations (such as political finance maps), and create new platforms for citizens to interact with MPs or participate in parliamentary monitoring and policy analysis."

Download Governance-parliamentary-monitoring-organizations-survey-september-2011

Web Squared: Web 2.0's Successor?

A short presentation by Tim O’Reilly and John Battelle

<div style="width:425px" id="__ss_1640941"> <strong style="display:block;margin:12px 0 4px"><a href="http://www.slideshare.net/oreillymedia/web-squared" title="Web Squared" target="_blank">Web Squared</a></strong> <iframe src="http://www.slideshare.net/slideshow/embed_code/1640941" width="425" height="355" frameborder="0" marginwidth="0" marginheight="0" scrolling="no"></iframe> <div style="padding:5px 0 12px"> View more presentations from <a href="http://www.slideshare.net/oreillymedia" target="_blank">O'Reilly Media</a> </div> </div>

 

Guideline for External Use of Web 2.0 in the Canadian Government

Sources: 

http://governingpeople.com/mikekujawski/24943/guideline-external-use-web-20-government-canada

http://www.tbs-sct.gc.ca/pol/doc-eng.aspx?id=24835&section=text

Extract

Will this guideline be criticized?

Of course it will. I can see a whole slew of negative comments already coming in:

• it’s too long
• it’s ambiguous
• it doesn’t tell me exactly what to do
• it’s overly polished
• it’s too restrictive

If you’re thinking one of the above, please stop. Instead, think about how much more you can do to build a case for more empowerment and engagement now that these are out. If you experience a roadblock, find a nugget within the guideline that can help you get around it, it’s full of them. As a starting point before complaining, I would suggest reading the entire guideline from start to finish, as I just did. Yes, there are plenty of things that could be improved, ignore them for now and highlight the positives. Use these to inform your colleagues, your bosses and your staff. Build understanding of this guideline into employee training programs. Hold guideline lunch n’ learn orientation sessions…you get the point. There is obviously still plenty of work that needs to be done in terms of building “social” into the fabric of the public service culture, especially at the senior levels.I urge all public servants that have been involved in pushing concepts such as collaboration, community and engagement over the last decade to leverage this opportunity and shift into 2nd gear, if not 3rd (at high RPM’s). Finally, I’d like to extend my own personal congratulations to all of you that helped make this happen. You know who you are.