Usability in EU Projects

The following issues and questions are related to usability in the context of preparing a proposal or planning a project.

Project participants may have difficulties in defining and organising usability and accessibility activities in the project workplan. An easy way (especially for usability and accessibility novices) would be to provide a separate accessibility and usability workpackage accompanying the whole project. The responsibility for this workpackage should be a partner who is experienced in the field of user-centred design for both able-bodied and disabled users.
The activities in the project workplan should include identifying accessibility and usability requirements, iterative evaluation of early prototypes, and accessibility and usability testing of working prototypes.
When planning user-centred activities for an EU-funded project, the required effort is often difficult to estimate for project participants inexperienced in usability and accessibility. A rule of thumb would be to envisage 10-20% of the total person power for user-centred activities (analysis, evaluation, design input, etc.) in an average-sized EU-funded project.
Once a proposal is approved, project participants might think that there is no possibility to incorporate usability and accessibility into their project plan. Usually, there are still some possibilities to redefine project tasks to incorporate usability and accessibility activities with support from appropriate experts.

UsabilityNet has produced a guide for EC projects: First Steps to User Centred Design(PDF File 173kb)