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Structure of USE-ME.GOV validation

USE-ME.GOV system validation activities have been carried out on 5 components: platform technology, usability, platform usability, service deployment and exploitation and business models.

Platform validation covered the validation of functional and non-functional user requirements of the USE-ME.GOV system.
Operational service deployment and platform exploitation placed the focus on operational management and related aspects of service deployment and exploitation.
Core objective of the validation of the business model was the evaluation of business options for the sustainable operation of the offered USE-ME.GOV service.
Usability validation covered the validation of intuitive application interfaces and was based on the selection of external users representing different target groups (age, educational background, interests, geographical area with social-economical particularities etc.).
Finally, platform usability validation covered platform installation, configuration, integration, operation and maintenance validation

The Platform validation focused on two different aspects:

Functional operation of the integrated platform under operational conditions. As regards this point, the platform has been validated under the particular conditions given by the field trials, i.e. for each particular pilot service in the respective country and place, and taking into account possible constraints with regard to the technical integration.
Non-functional requirements (interoperability, openness, etc) and achievement of design goals concerning the platform architecture. As regards these aspects, non-functional requirements are associated with constraints on the attributes of the functions or services the system must support.

The Operational service deployment and platform exploitation validation focussed on two fundamental issues:

- Prioritization and Interest in Public Mobile Services
The objective was to validate the general interest and priorities with respect to mobile services, from the perspectives of the public administration as provider and the citizen as service user.

Indicators have been structured around the following areas:

General IST strategy
Impact on Work Organisation
Service Quality and Efficiency expected from mobile services deployment

- Service Specific Operational Aspects
The objective was to assess the (expected) impact of platform and service deployment at the operational level. Indicators have been structured around the following areas:

Impact on Work Organisation
Service Efficiency
Service Quality

The Business models validation mainly focused on the validation of business model specific questions which should finally give a recommendation which options of business model might be feasible, advisable and of course also possible concerning acceptance, regulations, as well as pros and cons. Core objective of the validation of the business model has been the evaluation of business options for the sustainable operation of the offered USE-ME.GOV service. This included:

the end-user acceptance of options (price, operation, offer bundling, etc.)
the authorities point of view about sharing of services, price, partnerships, etc.
as well as opinions and advises from other departments, authorities and external contacts opinion about possibilities and success of these options.

The Usability validation mainly focused on the usability testing activities applied on the design of the 4 pilot services for USE-ME.GOV: the Healthcare pilot in Poland, the News Broadcast pilot in Italy, the Mobile Student pilot in Spain and the Complaints pilot in Portugal. Usability validation results summarizes both specific results for each application tested, as well as more general conclusions that can be taken from all these user interaction studies.

The Platform usability validation mainly focused on the evaluation of the answers to a set of questionnaires posed to development teams that covered areas such as platform installation and configuration, adding new operators, integration and operation and maintenance.