Bonn (Germany), November 2006 - "The eUser project represents the first coherent effort to address the needs of the whole population in relation to online public services of public interest. While some countries like Denmark and the United Kingdom have a leading edge, European leaders have not done enough to tailor services to the users. Users will demand far more in the future, and there is room for improvement", says eUser project manager Werner B. Korte of Empirica GmbH.
The EU-funded eUser project's research includes a representative population survey and assessments of the supply side of online services of public interest in all 25 EU member states. The eUser survey comprises data from ten European countries on access, usage patterns, and attitudes toward public services provided via the Internet.
Concise country briefs for each of the 25 EU countries include information on:
The country briefs are based on desk research, interviews with experts and stakeholders, as well as on secondary data from Eurostat and other Commission Services. The project has also analysed 21 good practice cases in eGovernment, eHealth, and eLearning from the EU member states.
One promising example in the area of eLearning is Germany's platform "Second Chance Online", which includes "I want to learn how to write" . This online service has attracted significant interest among its target group of functional illiterates, which demonstrates the potential of eLearning as a tool in social inclusion policies.
eUser is a resource for member states, especially those responsible for online public services offerings. eUser's easy-to-use user-orientation inspection tool for online service quality has already been piloted in ten eServices across Europe. Factors like visibility, findability, perceived usefulness, and quality of the interaction are among the most important.
Evaluators using this tool would assess online services starting from the basic notion that there are different types of users:
The freely available eUser Online Knowledge Base is found together with additional statistics and publications that are fully searchable. It is expected to become a key European resource for years to come and will be a reference model to improve the delivery, design, and user experience of online public services.
