Originally published here.

The UK Employment Service launched an initiative in 1996 to introduce touch-screen kiosks in job centres as an alternative to the traditional vacancy display boards. The system itself is called ‘Open Access’, as it enables job seekers to gather sufficient information regarding vacancies to allow them to contact employers directly, independent of any assistance from job centre staff.   Since the duty to make ‘reasonable adjustments’ under the Disability Discrimination Act 1995 came into effect in October 1999, service providers such as the Employment Service have been required to enable full access to its services for disabled people.

This study focuses upon the usability of the Open Access system with emphasis on the perspective of disabled users. Using a mixed methodology which combined interviews, questionnaires and cognitive walkthroughs, data was collected from a sample of disabled and non-disabled job seekers. From this data, both generic and disability-specific usability issues were identified. These findings are discussed in detail and implications for kiosk design are addressed, in particular to take greater account of the needs of disabled users as well as improving the general level of service provision.

Since 1996, the UK Employment Service [ES] have been piloting touch-screen kiosks in job centres as a means of providing jobseekers with access to vacancies held on the ES’s Labour Market System database. Given its commitment to helping people with disabilities find work, the ES needs to ensure that their methods of service provision are as accessible to disabled jobseekers as non-disabled jobseekers. The duty under the Disability Discrimination Act 1995 (HMSO, 1995) requires service providers to make ‘reasonable adjustments’ to enable the same level of access to services by disabled as non-disabled people.

This came into effect in October 1999 and  posed a critical test of the touch-screen kiosks in terms of providing an accessible and usable means for disabled jobseekers to access job vacancies. This study presents the results of a usability evaluation of the kiosks from the specific perspective of disabled jobseekers, and generally looks at how the ES may harness the potential of new technologies to improve service provision to disabled users.

The issue of designing for non-expert users warrants particular attention in light of any proposals to rollout Open Access on a national basis. It should be noted at this juncture that the socio-economic profile of the client base at the job centre where this research was conducted is likely to be relatively prosperous in comparison to other those of other job centres. The area itself is regarded as a highly ‘desirable’, and therefore expensive, part of south Manchester, and it populated by a significant proportion of young professionals, who in turn are more likely to be computer literate due to increased exposure to ICTs through education and employment.

It could therefore be argued that the sample in this study were more computer literate than the population as a whole, and thus not representative of the ES client base at large. This caveat only serves to underline the importance of the findings of the work, and the need to address the various usability issues that have been identified.

Previous evaluations of Open Access have failed to identify specific issues affecting the usability of the system. This is because they have focused rather narrowly on feasibility issues and have not evaluated the kiosks with real users in a real working context. Although the findings presented in this study may be argued to be unsurprising, they represent the true quality of the user experience, which is shown to be one dogged by poor consideration of the context of use, as well as impediments to usability and accessibility inherent in the design of the interface and the functionality offered by the system. It is this ‘user experience’ that will determine whether both non-disabled and disabled jobseekers choose to, or are able to use ‘Open Access’. In order for the ES to meet the requirements placed upon it by the DDA (HMSO, 1999), as well as successfully integrate Open Access into its core business functions, a comprehensive usability evaluation such as the present one is crucial. More importantly, such  evaluations  need to constitute a key part of the whole pilot process, where the findings are fed back into system design.

You can read the complete article here.