Sogei has been providing solutions and Information & Communication Technology services for the Italian Tax Administration for 28 years. Sogei was founded in 1976 and its mission was to set up a modern tax system. Sogei, today, is 100% state-owned and constitutes the Tax Administration’s technological partner; it holds a prominent position as it is the leading company in Italy in the ICT sector. According to the e-Europe 2005 Action Plan and the Italian e-Government Programme, Sogei has developed for the Ministry of economy and finance web sites for the delivery of e-services.

Sogei has been involved in usability research activities since 1992. A Usability Lab was set up in 1994 and its task is the testing of all critical software applications developed for the Italian Tax Administration. Sogei's Usability Lab has been recently improved; it is organised in two logical and physical areas: a user room and a control room, separated by a one-way mirror. A third separate room - the observation room – is linked to the lab with video displays.  

 

The control room. 

The user room has a standard office layout equipped with additional instruments – a microphone and two motion-cameras. In this room the user performs tasks for usability testing. The control room is equipped with two PCs, DVD and S-VHS recorders, a video mixer, a 29” PAL video display, as well as an additional 14” video display connected to a quad split unit. In this area usability experts and software designers control user performance and human-computer interaction.  

During the test, tasks and events are logged with The Observer Video-Pro. In quantitative studies, summary statistics (task completion times, error rates) are exported to Excel and next to statistical tools for hypothesis testing. The Lab is also equipped with assistive technologies targeted at controlling software accessibility serving disabled people. Sogei solutions and equipments comply with the Italian Public Administration ICT Authority recommendations relating to software usability and accessibility.  

Sogei - Società Generale d'Informatica
Software Usability Group
Via Mario Carucci, 99
I-00143 Roma
Italy  
URL: http://www.sogei.it/competences/usability.htm