Lessons learnt from an HCI repository

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Abstract

This paper describes how repository concepts have been put into practice in the Inland Revenue – the UK Tax Office – which has a managed network of 45,000 MS-Windows PCs. In 1993, the organisation started to implement a comprehensive HCI Programme. An HCI Framework and a Style Guide were written, usability evaluation techniques were tried out, and an HCI repository implemented. The repository includes interlinked MS Windows Help Files of the HCI documents, the organisation's Data Strategy documents and various HCI information such as usability metrics by project, examples of completed HCI work, typical resource requirements and costs for HCI methods, standard keyboard assignments, toolbar icons, etc. The format proved so effective that it has become the recognised vehicle for many of the organisation's strategy documents and procedure manuals and is now accessible to several thousand staff via 30 Local Area Networks.

The purpose of the repository is to provide standards, guidance, methods, templates, checklists, etc., to help people do their work more effectively; and to enable people to feedback their experiences to improve its contents. The Inland Revenue implementation indicates that it is best to start small and simple and respond to user requests for information and functionality. However, the need to motivate people to take the time and trouble to feedback their experiences to the repository is recognised as a major cultural challenge.

Repositories can be useful to any community which undertakes purposeful activity. This includes Ergonomics/HCI specialists within an organisation, within a country, and across the world. However, to exploit the potential of a respository a community must adjust its organisations and intitutions; and community members must come to a new understanding of their role. Individuals must learn to place greater priority on working together and on feeling back their experiences into the improvement cycle.


Relevence to industry

The successful application of Ergonomics/HCI principles and techniques within a dynamic organisation requires efficient knowledge sharing to avoid re-inventing the wheel and to learn from experience. This paper provides an example of how a widely distributed and easily accessible Repository can provide an effective knowledge sharing infrastructure.

Introduction

The Inland Revenue (IR) is the UK Tax Office. It employs around 55,000 peole in 800 offices. It has managed a network of 1000 UNIX servers and 45,000 MS Windows PCs supporting local tax offices; and about 40+Local Area Networks (LANs) – some interconnected, some not – supporting a further 8000+ MS Windows PCs used by policy, management and administration staff.

In 1993, Paul Wilson, a CSC consultant working in IR's Systems Architecture Unit, launched a 150 page Framework document describing how Human–Computer Interaction (HCI) issues are to be adressed. The Framework collects together all the People issues associated with IR computer systems, and spans technology (hardware and software), workplace (furniture, lighting etc.), support (documentation, training, etc.) and people and job aspects (such as teamworking, job design etc.). An Interface Style Guide to support computer screen design, was published at the same time.

Although both documents were published in the hardcopy format, they had been constructed around two principles which require a more dynamic format to achieve their aims:

  • The use of templates, checklists etc. to minimise time and manpower effort.

  • Learning by experience to promote constant improvement and adaptation to change.

Therefore, a specification for an electronic HCI repository was produced, but it was over a year before an opportunity arose to implement it. At the beginning of 1995, John Borras, who was responsible for the IR Data Strategy, decided to explore the use of Windows Help Files for publishing the two Data Strategy manuals. The IR Style Guide cross-references the Data Strategy manuals for field labels, date formats, etc., so it made sense to build and distribute them as two interlinked Help Files with hypertext links within and between each file. No additional software was required by users to read the files because the Help software is already embedded in the MS-Windows operating system.

So it was that the IR strategic information repository (SIR) was born. The first version contained six manuals, several other documents, a single Glossary and a single set of References – equivalent to about 600 hardcopy pages in all. It was distributed on three 1.4 Mb disks to about 160 individuals and to 15 LANs.

It was well received and authors of other IR manuals were quick to see the potential benefits (easier and cheaper maintenance, dynamic cross referencing to other documents, less `shelfware' forgotten in cupboards). One year later in June 1996, the 5th edition of the SIR contained 10 manuals and many other documents, equating to approximately 1000 pages. Some of these items continue to be published in hardcopy as well. The majority, however, do not and it is conservatively estimated that this has eliminated 143,000 pages and 1800 binders/folders. This represents a real saving of at least £55,000 because the items concerned would all have had major re-issues by now. That figure has to be set against SIR costs which, for the 5th edition amounted to some £9000 (£8750 people costs and £250 for disks).

The 5th edition was distributed to 120 individuals and 30 LANs making it available to approximately 4–5000 people. This is far more than was possible using hardcopy which constrains distribution by its cost and bulk. Hardcopy manuals sent to section leaders and managers may be accessible to staff in principle but are less so in practice.

The overall structure of the SIR and the detailed structure of the HCI element is shown in Fig. 1.

Section snippets

Repository concepts

Repositories come in all shapes and sizes, from the ancient `great library' at Alexandria to the object libraries of today's IT systems. They are all `places where things are stored or may be found' (Fowler and Fowler, 1962). But the sort of repository this paper is describing has the following rather specific characteristics:

  • it is the definitive source of information

  • its purpose is to save time and effort and to support learning by experience

  • its core structure and form are centrally managed

  • its

Implementation considerations

Experience at the Inland Revenue indicates that there are many issues to address when implementing this type of repository. Some are described below:

  • Initial scope: The IR repository has changed beyond all recognition since its first publication. Requests to include new material keep coming in as more and more people perceive its advantages. Functionality has been added as usage has exposed the requirements (for example, in the 5th version an index facility for the whole of the contents was

Putting repositories to use

Repositories can be useful to any community which undertakes purposeful activity. They can be useful to groups within an organisation, to whole organisations, to groups cutting across many organisations, to groups within a country, and to groups across the world.

Embryo repositories abound. Databases of shared information, Lotus Notes databases, Microsoft Exchange folders, and an enormous variety of Web-based facilities all possess some repository characteristics. But to be a true `bootstrap'

Conclusions

The increasing pace of change has forced organisations to increase the speed of knowledge acquisition, distribution and exploitation. An integral part of this process is sharing experiences and improving the collective wisdom. Technology can help, but can only be effective if people understand, and act on, their new role in acquiring and improving knowledge for the common good. Repositories can be the focal point of this new corporate endeavour. They hold the same promise for national and

Acknowledgements

The authors wish to thank the Inland Revenue for permission to publish much of the information contained within this paper.

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