About Us
Our Vision
All people are able to find and use government information and services easily online.
Our Values
Independence
We will maintain independence from web site delivery services. Assessments will be unbiased and consistently applied regardless of the client.
Quality
We will apply due diligence in evaluating every criterion. All assessments will be put through a process of quality assurance. All quality issues will be investigated and acted upon promptly with no addition cost to clients
Right Relations
We will honour the agreements we make. We will be accountable for breaches to agreements and act to remedy then. Open communication will be valued and encouraged. We aim to work with our clients, suppliers and the public to attain our vision and support the achievement of their goals.
What are e-Gov Watch credentials?
- E-Gov Watch has reviewed over 160 New Zealand government sites against its criteria and has extensive comparative benchmark results available
- The developer of the e-Gov Watch methodology and Chief Assessor, Shane Middlemiss, has over 10 years experience in e-government planning and development across central, regional and local government levels. He assisted in editing the initial set of Government Web Guidelines. He is a recognised expert in e-Government strategy.
- Specialist assessment is conducted in the accessibility and usability areas by the companies Accease Ltd and University of Waikato respectively.
- Our team is made up of professionals with extensive government experience
Who we are
e-Gov Watch Ltd is a small, independently-owned New Zealand company. We have a team of experts who are leaders in their field. We are independent from any web development companies and are therefore able to offer independent, objective reviews of your websites.
Our Team
Shane Middlemiss – Executive Director and Chief Assessor
Shane
has had extensive e-government experience over the last 11 years.
He has worked as a consultant in e-strategy, content management, and
project management for government agencies since 1997. Shane
has worked on contracts for SSC, Ministry of Education, Department of
Internal Affairs and recently the Office of the Auditor General.
Shane is one of the leading thinkers in the e-government space in New
Zealand. Shane developed the e-Gov Watch criteria two years ago
and has successfully established these criteria as one of the leading
measures of e-Government performance here in New Zealand. There
are no similar models available anywhere in the world that is as
comprehensive in measuring e-Government performance. Shane
completes the assessments for Information and Services, E-Services,
Consultation and Cross Integration and controls the overall quality of
our assessments through sampling of the results from the rest of our
team to ensure consistency in performance.
Tania van der Vegte – Director
Tania
is an experienced project manager with over 15 years experience in
finance, internal auditing and financial and systems consulting.
She has worked for Department of Internal Affairs and Inland
Revenue. She spent 10 years in Wellington and worked as an
independent consultant for Telecom, Ministry of Commerce, Valuation NZ,
Department of Corrections, Forest Research and many other government
agencies. She was responsible for project managing the introduction of
the government Blue Pages to the Telecom phone books. Tania
recently spent two years as the Regional Manager for Waiariki Maori
Women’s Welfare League and gained extensive community experience
through this work.
Tania has been developing our company’s
systems and processes over the last year and reviews the Required
Government Content criteria..
AccEase Ltd
AccEase
are our accessibility experts. They are committed to helping
organisations ensure that their on-line information is accessible.
Services include accessibility auditing, user-testing by a panel of
testers with disabilities, consulting on accessibility issues and
constructing accessible web sites. They also develop
accessibility purpose statements and in-house development
methodologies. Principals are Robyn Hunt and Mike Osborne.
Robyn
Hunt is one of New Zealand’s leading experts in the field of
disability. Her expertise has allowed AccEase to put together a unique
panel of disabled testers. As an award-winning journalist and
communicator she brings extensive experience to ensuring readable,
accessible web sites and other electronic communications.
Mike
Osborne has a long background in software development and consulting on
IT, measurement, reporting, effective meetings practice and other
business management areas. He brings a focus on software usability and
on simplifying the communication and presentation of complex
information which lead him naturally into the area of accessibility.
Waikato University Usability Laboratory
Waikato University Usability Laboratory
are our usability experts. The Usability Laboratory promotes and
facilitates innovation and quality through academic-industry
relationships within many areas of Human Computer Interaction (HCI)
including user-centred design, usability and interaction design.
This is done by offering three valuable services to the NZ ICT
industry: User Experience / Usability Consulting, Industry &
Government -Focused Research, and Academic Research.
Established
in 2001, we offer one of the most experienced teams of usability
practitioners and researchers to the NZ IT industry.
The
team is well versed in all aspects of usability and HCI. In
addition, the Usability Laboratory has the most extensive usability
testing and evaluation facilities in NZ. We have provided
consulting and research services to a number of NZ commercial
organisations and government agencies. The Usability Laboratory
provides high quality outputs; and developing long term, mutually
beneficial relationships with clients is an important part of the ethos
of the Usability Laboratory.
The team for this project
involves Kirsten Thomson (Manager), Dave Nichols and Chris
Knowles. The team has a combined 50 years experience and are
well-versed in all areas of usability. Members of the team have
specialised areas of interest including customer and user experiences,
strategic and tactical web development, e-learning, cognitive
complexity, task analysis, information development, the implementation
of website technologies, digital library development and technologies,
remote usability testing, remote testing, and out-of-the-box
experiences (OOBE).
The Usability Laboratory is a part of
the University of Waikato Human Computer Interaction (HCI) Research
Group which is based in the Department of Computer Science at The
University of Waikato.