Probation Board of Northern Ireland

Overview

E-consultation is often criticized on the grounds that different groups of people do not have equal access to electronic communications technologies. They may not be able to afford Internet access at home, or have the skills or confidence to use Internet facilities in libraries, community centres or cybercafés. As a general criticism, it is a weak one.

The most common consultation technique used in Ireland is to write a long document (40, 50 or even 200 pages) in an inaccessible language. This discriminates against those with little time, and those who do not have very high reading skills.

Few e-consultation techniques will be so exclusive. From the beginning, we have proposed e-consultation techniques as complementary to traditional approaches, rather than replacements. Each technique can reduce participation: but the groups excluded are different. However, no matter what you do to make electronic access simpler, there are still people who will find it difficult to participate.

In this case example we discuss what can be done to improve accessibility and usability for some of these groups.

Designing a usability test

Designing a usability test of an e-consultation interface for ex-offenders