If the Tories have realised this about IT projects why hasn’t everyone else?

It seems the Conservative Party knows a lot more about big IT projects than the people who are responsible for big IT projects.

Apparently they are considering putting a £100m cap on government IT contracts according to this BBC news report.

This is based on a report from Judge Business School, Cambridge.

Great idea. I have long considered that there is a certain size above which big public service projects are doomed to go pear shaped, no matter what.

Maybe the cap should be £10m and not £100m?

I can’t really be bothered to get into the whole open source thing although having open data standards across government would seem, er, sensible.

I just think that big IT projects don’t go according to plan.

But then thinking about it the really small ones don’t either!

Hangin’ on the telephone

No surprises really in this story about how mobile phones are getting more complex to use, and that more people would use the more advanced functions if they could only use them.

Not rocket science is it?

I am ready to admit that I spent many hours onerously deleting read emails on my iPhone one by one until a colleague informed me that the edit button allows you to mark emails for deletion.

And that’s hardly an advanced function.

Confused.com aren’t confused

The recent TV adverts in the UK (that’s just to the left of Yerp if you live in America) for the Confused.com price comparison website are unusual simply because the main selling point is usability.

Yes that’s right, a TV ad promoting the benefits of good web design.

The Confused site before their site redesign is one of the sites reviewed for the BBC by real people with real accessiblity needs and is interesting viewing. You can see the review here.