| Abstract [eng] |
The subject of this paper is development of usability monitoring principles for Lithuanian state institutions websites. After analyzing usability evaluation methods suggested by J. Nielsen and international Usability Professionals’ Association and practice of usability monitoring in public sector of Great Britain, Norway, Taiwan, Australia and New Zealand, it was decided to recommend Lithuanian state institutions to use heuristic usability evaluation. In addition, as usability monitoring is closely connected with websites management, main principles of state institutions website management with integrated usability monitoring and usability recommendations were defined. The reason for this research was lack of usability monitoring principles for Lithuanian state institutions websites. According to most recent computer literacy research performed in the end of 2005, Lithuanian state institutions websites are not very widely used. In addition, the main legal document Common Requirements for State Institutions Websites setting basic principles for Lithuanian state institutions websites development doesn’t define enough of usability requirements and even doesn’t mention usability monitoring. As usability monitoring is considered to be a part of websites management, United Kingdom Government recommendations for state websites management were analyzed and used for defining Lithuanian state websites management principles. The main principles for usability monitoring were defined and usability monitoring was integrated with websites management process. Analysis has shown that public websites usability monitoring differs from private sector websites usability monitoring because of different websites context that sets the goals for websites. Furthermore, analysis has shown that the best usability evaluation methods for Lithuanian state institutions websites is heuristic evaluation because it is relatively simple, flexible and doesn’t require much costs. In addition, it is mostly used in public sector of reviewed countries. Heuristic evaluation depends on heuristic model (set). Implemented heuristic model for evaluating Lithuanian state institutions websites encompasses basic state institutions website components: contents, contents presentation, and user interface. Proposed model consists of 61 heuristics. Some of these heuristics may be verified using software tools. Proposed methods should be used in usability monitoring process as a part of websites management. The methods allow evaluating usability effectively, comprehensively and reliably because it has been integrated with websites management (that means management of monitoring is clearly defined), it has been developed considering websites model and context (that means it is comprehensive), and it is based on mathematical relations. Principles for Lithuanian state websites usability monitoring were used during experimental evaluating of 15 Lithuanian state institutions websites. The results of experiment showed that Lithuanian state institutions websites have usability gaps and usability recommendations for these websites were defined. It will be recommended to Information Society Development Committee under the Government of Republic of Lithuania to use these recommendations when updating Common Requirements for state institutions websites. This paper might be useful for persons working in Lithuanian state institutions and responsible for websites, students of information technologies sciences who are interested in public sector websites and Information Society Development Committee under the Government of Republic of Lithuania which is responsible for updating Common Requirements for state institutions websites. |
