e-tendering shame

In the frenetic passage between 07 and 08 I forgot to close this sorry tale. I did get a visit from the Office for Government Commerce . A very nice lady made the day trip to London and tried to use the online system here in my office, in my seat. And guess what? She was lost after two seconds. Two seconds!! I kid you not. She was confused, flustered, lost for words and a little shame faced. She could neither navigate forwards or backwards and the more she tried to find her way round the more painful the whole thing became.

I thought I had scored a victory for those of us interested in usability. How wrong I was. After a number of weeks of so called investigation, I received a follow up so weak, so lacking in responsibility or understanding of the issues I had to give up the fight lest I develop a hernia. And most of it cut and pasted from the contractor's defence of their own system.

So if you have the misfortune to ever have to use the e-tendering system from bravo solution, or hold out any hope that the UK government will ever invest in user experience, then God you help you.