Congratulations to one of our biggest usability clients, the Department for Transport, whose Transport Direct website has just won the 'Public Sector Project of the Year’ category of the Computing Awards for Excellence 2004.

Transport Direct is a unique new travel information and journey planning web site for Great Britain covering car and public transport.  From the beginning, the Transport Direct team have recognised the need for effective targeting of users and their transport needs.  Crucially this audience will include those people who are deemed socially excluded in the area of travel and transport information.

Our consultants have been working with the Transport Direct project team for nearly two years, providing expertise on usability and accessibility.  We started by characterising the initial target audience and identifying the tasks they would want to perform.  This led to the development of different prototypes which we evaluated for both usefulness and usability.  Most recently we have conducted usability and accessibility tests on the first release of the website.

We are delighted that our input has helped the Department for Transport win this prestigious award and look forward to the continued success of this initiative.