[EQAB-list] Web front suggestion

[Ellen Smith]

FYI: At one time, EQAB had access to a subdirectory on the city website.
We started out by posting an online version of the paper brochure that
EQAB members had developed on the local environment. City tech staff
took control of EQAB's pages a long time ago, but some of our old
content survives.

That online brochure survives (in an odd-looking and not recently
updated form) on
http://www.cortn.org/business/HOME/7-Information/64-protected-settings
and other pages linked there. 

Board members created some other pages that were linked from an index
page we created. A revised version of the index page is still at
http://www.cortn.org/business/HOME/7-Information/HOME/7-Information/HOME/7-Information/117-eqab-web-resources . The only EQAB-generated pages still there are the brochure (mentioned above) and an acronym list at http://www.cortn.org/business/HOME/7-Information/HOME/7-Information/HOME/7-Information/HOME/7-Information/118-eqab-acronym-list 

On Thu, 2009-01-22 at 14:26 -0500, Fred L Stephens wrote:
> I have a simple suggestion to improve our web presence. This involves 
> a few repeated steps. This should be done apart from setting up a 
> citizen feedback system for green issues.
> 
> 1. Ask one responsible citizen to visit the city web site to answer 
> any and all questions they imagine about EQAB. NO other instructions. 
> It is best that one of us or Athanasia is silently watching as they 
> do their chore. Note: Only five or ten minutes is needed in the 
> beginning. It usually does not take long to see the usability problems.
> 2. That person reports back their experience. If we are watching we 
> record the problems, carefully, fully, and with little judgement.
> 3. We make improvements.
> 4. Go back to #1 with the same person.
> 5. Then we go onto a second and different naive customer/user with #1.
> 
> After 3 or 4 people you will have an web interface that is vastly 
> improved in usability and available information. Naive users are 
> required for testing; EQAB members and IT staff are not qualified.
> 
> This is not rocket science. It is a technique that a growing number 
> of software companies have begun to implement. For those so inclined 
> as to be interested in the history, this goes back to such books as 
> Programming As if People Mattered and a few other fun titles.
> 
> If we do the above, we will set a positive example for the rest of 
> the city web site.
> 
> One final note. It is important to get a variety of PC and Macs into 
> the testing to make sure technical problems related to different 
> browsers are also uncovered. Yet, we should not be too concerned 
> about making sure machines with Window 98 or really odd and old 
> browsers work. We aim for the 95% of machines.
> 
> Fred L Stephens
> email: freds7 at dancingcreek.com   
> _______________________________________________ EQAB-list mailing list EQAB-list at discoveret.org http://www.discoveret.org/mailman/listinfo/eqab-list