User Requirements as a Constant in Cybrarian
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Presentation at Cybrarian Stakeholders Conference 2005
Date: 14/04/2005
Venue: Hilton London Paddington
Article
The Stakeholder Group has been together now for three years which makes it difficult to realise how unusual a Group of this sort is in a project like MyGuide. The most frequent reason why accessibility projects fail is that the supposed beneficiaries are never asked what they want; they are simply supposed to want various things which are deemed good for them by project funders and deliverers.
The very uniqueness of this process is one of the factors why I have stayed with the project through all its ups and downs over the past three years. Whatever has changed, not least the ICT environment, one of the key factors, for which I have been responsible, has remained constant and that is the interpretation of the user requirement into terms which the project can deliver.
It is important to note that what users want has been a key factor in project decisions but we have by no means got everything we want. Most of you will know how hard I have pushed, on your behalf, for MyGuide to work across all platforms, particularly digital television and mobile phones; and as these technologies attain greater and greater uptake as PC uptake stagnates, I think we have been right and will be ever more right as time goes by. We want to make MyGuide available on computers of course, and the pilots will focus on this, but it seems ever more likely that PC-driven systems will never reach more than about 2/3 of our population; and it's the last 1/3 MyGuide was created to serve.
Of course the PC is the best technology through which to realise our user requirements for customisation, email and so on, as it is the user interface most amenable to software packages and upgrades; but I still have the vision, on your behalf. People will want MyGuide to be always on, always there and sometimes private.
This constant theme of interpreting the user requirement has been stimulating for all of us but it has been immensely valuable for the DfES and UFI because we have been articulate and cohesive; and in a really serious way, Stakeholders will be able to take great credit for the success of the project. I suppose like the salesmen of financial products I have to warn that the market can go down as well as up; but I have no doubt that MyGuide will be a long term success which will have impact far outside the confines of the DfES/UFI Project.
I think it is important that even when the pilots have delivered, and we are going into full implementation, that we continue to monitor and adjust. Sooner or later Government will want substantial uptake of its e-government services from those who use them most, namely the elderly, the sick, the poor and the socially and digitally disadvantaged; that is our constituency.
Which leads me to my final major point. We have all been stakeholders for our constituency, not geeks or techies trying to develop a fascinating system for our own sense of intellectual well being. I want to thank you all for that. Travelling around many community ICT projects I have been deeply conscious of waste and frustration, of legacy kit on the one hand and fancy, unused applications on the other. I think we have struck the right balance in our work and for that you can take the credit.
As the project evolves into full implementation, I know that we will continue to need forceful, focused and generous stakeholder participation, although it might not often be in the form of plenary meetings. I therefore wish to thank all of you for what you have done and what you will continue to do. What shape that takes will be in the hands of John Brown and his colleagues; so now I hand you over to John.