HANDS Partner’s Logo Experiencing the eTEN HANDS Project Julie Warren Telecities Conference, Bologna June 29th 2007 H ELPING AN SWERS D ECISION S ERVICE

HANDS

Partner’s Logo

Experiencing the eTEN HANDS Project

Julie Warren

Telecities Conference, Bologna June 29th 2007

HELPING

ANSWERS

DECISION

SERVICE

Bologna Telecities Conference, June 29th 2007

EU Framework

6th Framework Programme

Research and development

Thematic Priority IST

Information Society Technologies

To •enable people to participate fully in the Information Society•stimulate & support roll-out of innovative trans-European e-services•Encourage organisations to extend their services to marginalised groups of users

Action 2 Market Validation

eTEN Programme

Theme 1 – eGovernment

On-line services provided by or for public administrations and services aimed at broadening participation in the

democratic process

HANDS


History

2003-05

2005

Mid-2006

End-2006

5 NLP (Natural Language Processing) applications developed and tested under EDEN (“Electronic Democracy European Network”) scheme

2 selected for market validation under eTen scheme (‘Deploying Trans-European e-Services for all’)

Bologna and Napier of original consortium sought new partners for HANDS proposal

Napier & CEC joined forces again Hands consortium proposal successful in

funding bid


The Consortium

Coordination: Bologna Municipality (Italy)

Technical and business development: – Regulus by Stylo s.r.l. (Italy); – EUNICS S.p.A. (Italy)

Pilot testing - Local Authorities:– Bologna Municipality (Italy) – City of Saarbruecken (Germany) – City of Edinburgh (Scotland, UK)

Pilot testing - Public Utility:– Enìa S.p.A. (Italy)

Research & Evaluation: – International Teledemocracy Centre, Napier University, (Scotland, UK)

Dissemination: – EUROCITIES – www.eurocities.org


Project objectives

To “market validate” the HANDS ‘self-service’ communication system by:

identifying the conditions for its future deployment on a European scale.

Investigating its administrative & economic viability

Refining the HANDS offer to meet target customers’ expectations and market-standard quality.


Address Guesser

1. User accesses the HANDS

service on the PB website

2. Types a question in everyday

speech.

3. Screen displays

question/answer pairs matching

the user’s query (Answer Tree)

4. User wants more or different

information

5. Uses automatic email routing

service

6. Receives email answer– (Address Guesser)

Browse for answer

Review answers

Enter question

Need satisfied

Question routed to office

Receive answer

Human interaction

Answer Tree

Overview of HANDS application


Project plan & process

WHAT Set-up

Project Plan

Quality Plan

Comms Plan

Pilot site preps

Evaluation tools design

Pilot 1

Evaluation

Application refinements

Business Plan

Pilot 2

Evaluation

Deployment Plan

Close

WHEN Months

1-3

Months

4-6

Months

7-9

Months

10-12

Months 13-15

Months

16-18

Review


Work Packages

1. Project Management

2. User Requirements and adaptation

3. Business Model

4. Pilots and Validation

5. Evaluation

6. Dissemination


Workflow


Pilot constituents

Italian Work, school, cultural and leisure events in the city for young people Development projects, traffic, parking, and cycling paths Energy saving, water use awareness and waste management Utility company Student internship opportunities and other educational activities

Scottish English

Pest control Bereavement services School Placement and Educational Maintenance Awards services

German IT Customer Service and Support Statistics on population, building, enterprises, employment, labour market and business, taxes, traffic etc. Elections: results, laws and rules, polling stations, absentee voting etc

4 PBs - 3 languages – 10 information domains


Intended end-user benefits

Easy access to information – (any internet connection anywhere)

Directly related to query – (system ‘understands’ query then looks for answer or routes to right person)

Sophisticated query techniques not required – (everyday language not keywords)

An additional channel for communication with PB – (more transparency betwee PB & citizens)


Intended organisational benefits

More effective query handling – (accurate information always to hand)

Better quality of response - (informed by real user questions)

Increase in citizen/customer engagement with PB - (because engagement is easy)

Reduced cost of query handling -(because highly automated)


Evaluation Process

Overall planning

Installation &Training

Planning for testingInvolving Pilot Sites

Usefulnessmeasurement

Testingby departments

UsabilityUser feedback

UtilityInformation Retrieval

Managementacceptability

1. Evaluation criteria

2. Observation

3. Guidelines

4. Data analysis

5. Interview analysis


General test findings

• The PB operators generally satisfied by the service.

• Found easy to operate & did not need help (v. IT literate)

• Most end users also seemed to be satisfied by the service. Only novice IT users needed help to use it

• Most users said they thought HANDS was a useful service and would use it for enquiries.

• Generally HANDS not seen as a substitute for traditional communication channels (e.g. searching in the Council’s website, phone calling or directly going to the relevant office).

• Rather seen as a complementary tool to integrate with other channels for choice and completeness


General test findings cont …

Some languages (eg. German) present particular problems for NLP engine in HANDS

Improving screen design, navigations, and user manuals would make HANDS more user friendly and more marketable


Findings re. Usefulness/Utility

System liked & its potential appreciated...but only as good as quality of data available to HANDS for responses to

queries Routes taken to information are diverse (email, web search, phoning up,

walk-in queries) – HANDS needs to fit in with other communication channels

Organisational structure significant -(eg. central or dispersed query traffic; in-house v outsourced ICT, commercial v PA) - affects potential utility of HANDS

So, to get the best from HANDS Ensure processes in place to create FAQs and online content Set up baseline measures to assess impact of HANDS (eg. Counts of

mail, phone calls, etc) Ensure sufficient answers in AT database to reduce pressure through

emails UNDERSTAND YOUR PARTICULAR CUSTOMERS/CITIZENS


Findings re. organisational acceptability

Talking to managers - critical to buy-in to HANDS Buy-in critical to HANDS potential Stakeholders generally positive on the concept

Priorities for management– Assurance over software support

OSS not an issue, and perceived positively in Italy

– HANDS Group Recognise PA’s commercial constraints

Varying viewpoints– Performance summaries– Website integration– Bundles concept


Other project outcomes

Best eTen project, January 2007 Very effective international partnership Excellent project management &

communications Valuable learning about NLP processing, query

handling, information provision, user need Valuable contribution to EU policy on

development of OS solutions in international context

Novel Business Model


Any questions?

HANDS

Partner’s Logo

Pilot 2 in The City of Edinburgh Council

Julie Warren

Thank you!


Why we participated in HANDS

Strategic Fit with CEC Customer First Strategy: a national vision of

Customer Service Efficiency and Modernisation Agendas: Smart

City Strategy Web strategy: new Council internet and intranet

to deliver on-line services. Engage with Citizens: always searching for new

and better ways


Strategic aims of Pilot Partners

– The aim of the pilot is to improve the quality of information Enìa provides to customers. Enìa would like also to improve Call Centre quality of activities and – at the same time - not to reduce the number of calls received by the Call Centre.

– IT Customer Service and Support In this domain the target end users are the users of the IT services of IKS, the IT company of the City of Saarbruecken, who can find help and information to any problems they have with software, hardware and infrastructure in connection with the used IT components.

– The aim of the pilot is to improve the quality of information IKS can give to their customers and to reduce the telephone calls to the IKS-Hotline call center. Another aim is to get more statistical data about problems the users have, in order to be able to avoid them in the future if possible.

Documents

HANDS Partner’s Logo Experiencing the eTEN HANDS Project Julie Warren Telecities Conference, Bologna June 29th 2007 H ELPING AN SWERS D ECISION S ERVICE