Do you have any other points you’d add to this chart? Let me know and I’ll credit your ideas on this blog if you want.

Download PDF (72 Kb): Usability Differences Between Web and Print Media

Rating: 10/10  Notes: Somehow this feature still functions effectively when children are adults, and regardless of their expanded height or girth.

2. Visual acuity and sightlines

Rating: 10/10  Notes: Most subjects seemed to have 360-degree vision (“eyes in the back of their heads”), could spot micro stains on shirts from 12 yards away, and had the ability to discern the difference between lying eyes and eyes that were telling the truth.

3. Heart responds to physical, emotional needs of children.

Rating 10/10  Notes: Tests have found that mother’s heart was fully scalable as it expanded easily to accommodate needs of higher number of children or children with exceptional physical and emotional needs.

4. Ability to process information and carry out tasks efficiently.

Rating: 10/10  Notes: Stress tests such as combining one wailing infant with a second child who needed his lunch packed for school resulted in high efficiency ratings. The ability to assist in math homework calculations while sorting laundry or talking to a client on the phone also impressed our analysts.

5. Recovery and reset capability.

Rating 9/10  Notes: Our observers noted an extremely high resiliency under long durations and task overload. However, many mothers lacked the ability to conduct effective self-care and general self-maintenance. We recommend that children enable mothers to have at least one annual 24-hour period where mothers can reboot or at least undergo defragmentation at a salon or spa.

6. Fully integrates with second and third generation systems.

Rating: 10/10  Notes: Over-the-shoulder tests found that mothers functioned perfectly with grandchildren and even great-grandchildren, although analysts noted that purchases of chocolates, toys and savings bonds seemed to be markedly increased from that of the first generation. We recommend that those with grandchildren and great-grandchildren be titled “Mother 2.0.”

OVERALL RATING: 100%

Comments: Happy Mother’s Day to my Mum and to mothers everywhere!

(We welcome additional data from other usability tests conducted on mothers, too!)

I’ve tweeted this before on my Twitter pages @usabilitydesign and @socialmediamash, but I have to expand on this issue here because I think it’s going to be something that is going to become an issue for Twitter micro-bloggers.

In case you’re new to Twitter, or not familiar with how it works, when you post a 140-character-or-less micro-blog on Twitter that includes a link to something you’ve referenced, Twitter will either handle that link one of two ways. If the link is not too long, Twitter will convert it to a clickable link and leave the URL as it was when you entered it.

The usability issue

If your combined text and URL is greater than 140 characters, Twitter won’t convert the URL to a TinyUrl then count your characters based on the length of the shortened URL. You have to either provide a shorter URL yourself OR shorten the text part of your tweet, which is a usability issue. Why should a URL count in the 140 characters you’re allowed?  

However, your post is less than 140 characters long, but the URL itself is quite long, Twitter will automatically convert it to a “TinyUrl,” (see http://TinyUrl.com), which is a shorter format link that redirects to the link you had specified. Nice of Twitter to do that for you, but here’s the problem. 

The security issue

Anyone can set up a Twitter account if they have a valid email address, and unscrupulous people who are phishing for your personal data or trying to install a virus or worm on your computer can use TinyURLs to mask what URL they are sending you to. You don’t know what the URL is until you click on the TinyURL version and open the site. By then it could be too late for you,

The TinyUrl.com site actually offers a more secure way to share a link that is being rediercted by a TinyUrl. It’s called “Preview,” and if you use the Preview version when you are manually creating your TinyUrl, then people who click on your TinyUrl link are first redirected to the TinyUrl.com site where they can see the actual URL and decide whether they feel it’s safe to click through and go to the site or not.

When Twitter automatically shortens URLs to TinyUrls, however, we don’t have a way to let people review the link before they visit the site.

A reasonable solution for both issues: embedded URLs

 Here’s a solution that Twitter could implement, if they really care about this issue.

If Twitter gave their users the ability to embed a URL in the text of their tweet… e.g. instead of entering a long link such as http://digitalpractices.org/2009/04/15/twitter-links-are-a-major-phishing-risk that Twitter will shorten into a TinyUrl, the message could simply refer to this blog post that I wrote, and thus Twitter users wouldn’t have to use up so many of their allotted 140 characters to include an URL. This would solve a usability issue on Twitter.

As for security, Twitter followers and browsers could simply hover their cursor over the link to see what it is. That way, they can at least have a fighting chance at finding out whether the link looks like it point to a legitimate Website rather than a creepy phishing site or some shady IP address spreading malware.

What do you think? Are you concerned about phishing or malware attempts when you click on TinyUrl links in Twitter posts?

For the operational side of Web governance, the following three models are compared side by side in chart format. Some of the details are generalizations, but nonetheless help illustrate the differences between fully Centralized, Decentralized and Federated (Distributed) models for larger organizations.

Download: Comparison Chart of Web Governance Models

An ocean is never the same body of water because it’s always moving changing, evaporating and being replenished by new rainwater and runoff. Likewise, Internet content is an ocean of information that with content that is evaporating almost as quickly as new content flows into it.

We’ve heard of the deep Web and the invisible Web, private or subscriber-based databases that are not accessible to indexing by public search engines (intentionally or unintentionally), but what about millions of links that are broken when content types or entire Web sites are removed from production? Or domain names that expire?

While we might not miss “Kyle’s Frat Party” site, what about information of value to journalists, researchers and academics? For online journal publishers and academic researchers who cite Internet content in the form of URLs, this is an especially troublesome issue. In 2003, the San Francisco Chronicle reports:

…a growing number of scientists and scholars who are nervous about their increasing reliance on a medium that is proving far more ephemeral than archival. In one recent study, one-fifth of the Internet addresses used in a Web-based high school science curriculum disappeared over 12 months. Another study, published in January, found that 40 percent to 50 percent of the URLs referenced in articles in two computing journals were inaccessible within four years.

ArchiveIt 2.0

One solution offered recently in a July 26, 2006 news release from The Internet Archive, a non-profit organization dedicated to preserving the Web and other digital archives, is the Archive-It 2.0 service, which allows the permanent capture of Web-based information for reference and archival purposes. Existing partners in this effort include the featured collections of the University of Toronto, Indiana University and North Carolina State Archives.

Archive-It 2.0 enables digital archivists, library and museum professionals to create more tailored, relevant and search-friendly collections of up to 10 million URLs based on regular Web crawls across selected websites. Through test crawls, subscribers may see what kind of web material would populate a certain collection before actually archiving them permanently. An optional paid feature within Archive-It 2.0, Archive-It Pro, allows subscribers to not only set caps on how many web documents are collected from a website over time, but also block the collection of materials from specific websites altogether. The digital collections, as a result, are focused and more easily managed, because irrelevant materials do not find their way into an institution’s archives.

Another issue is Web 2.0 sites, Ajax, Flash, and the increasing number of sites publishing information dynamically. Unlike static pages that can be archived as a hard document, dynamic pages feature content on demand that changes based on what information is requested from a database. Most blog sites offer Permalinks so search engines can index a permanent (or semi-permanent) record of journal entries, but as the Goddard Library Web Project discovered in a D-Lib Magazine article published in Nov 2004, the Web is becoming increasingly inaccessible for archival purposes:

We encountered several problems when performing the crawl on the increasingly complex scientific web sites. The most common problem resulted from the increasingly dynamic nature of those web sites. This includes content that is controlled by Javascript and Flash technologies, and dynamic content driven from database queries or content management systems. The crawling tool is unable to crawl a web page containing a search form that queries a database.

ISO Standards for publications

While librarians and Internet archivists try to address the issue of vanishing or inaccessible Internet content, Web site owners and content developers can play a part in helping libraries and archives document and preserve the Web. On Canada’s national Library and Archives site, there’s an excellent paper on Electronic Publishing published in 2001. While this was intended for Canadian publishers, the principles can be broadly applied to any electronic publishers on the Web. This matrix explains the scope of what the document means by electronic publishers.

Serial publications

If you publish an online journal, ezine or other serial publication online, applying for an ISSN (International Standard Serial Number) is a way to assign “a unique code for identifying serial publications, such as periodicals, newspapers, annuals, journals and monographic series” (Canada’s ISSN) and “magazines, newspapers, annuals (such as reports, yearbooks, and directories), journals, memoirs, proceedings, transactions of societies, and monographic series” (the United States ISSN). For serials distributed on the Internet and World Wide Web, the ISSN should appear on the first screen of the item.

While publishers are not legally obliged to use an ISSN, the U.S. site lists the benefits of applying for an ISSN:

The ISSN should be as basic a part of a serial as the title. The advantages of using it are abundant and the more the number is used the more benefits will accrue.

• ISSN provides a useful and economical method of communication between publishers and suppliers, making trade distribution systems faster and more efficient.

• The ISSN results in accurate citing of serials by scholars, researchers, abstracters, and librarians.

• As a standard numeric identification code, the ISSN is eminently suitable for computer use in fulfilling the need for file update and linkage, retrieval, and transmittal of data.

• ISSN is used in libraries for identifying titles, ordering and checking in, and claiming serials.
  ISSN simplifies interlibrary loan systems and union catalog reporting and listing.

• The U.S. Postal Service uses the ISSN to regulate certain publications mailed at second-class and controlled circulation rates.

• The ISSN is an integral component of the journal article citation used to monitor payments to the Copyright Clearance Center Inc.

• All ISSN registrations are maintained in an international data base and are made available in the ISDS Register, a microfiche publication which is scheduled to cease in the near future, or in “ISSN Compact,” a CD-ROM. These products are described in a document maintained by the ISSN International Centre: ISSN products

Individual publications

For individual publications, publishers should apply for an ISBN number. International Standard Book Numbers (ISBN) are 10-digit standard numbers for the unique identification of each edition of a book or other monographic publication (e.g. pamphlets, educational kits, etc.), as per this information on the Canadian ISBN site:

The International Standard Book Number (ISBN) is a system of numerical identification for books, pamphlets, educational kits, microforms, CD-ROM and other digital and electronic publications. Assigning a unique number to each published title, provides that title with its own, unduplicated, internationally recognized identifier.

As content publishers, our sites become part of the ocean of content online. We have a moral obligation to our current and future users to ensure the content we create becomes part of the Internet’s official historical record, good and bad, of humankind.

Get archived! 7 Ways to Keep Your Content from Vanishing

Most Web publishers, including me, are guilty of breaking links or removing content and having readers email you to ask “What happened to that (article/news item/link/download) on your site?”, but here are some steps you can take to help keep your content online and accessible (assuming you want it to be so!)

1. Check your links! This is a no-brainer, but with all the content management, link verification software and other tools available to Web publishers, it’s still a stinky issue. You or your Web development staff should establish link-naming conventions (e.g. Wikipedia’s) to govern the rules of how links are named, which can be followed consistently whether they are being named manually or dynamically.

2. Archive your links. If you really need to remove a link that is still valid, but isn’t relevant/essential to your site anymore, consider creating a Link Archive page where you can move the links so they can still be indexed by search engines and found by your users. Otherwise, create a redirect for old links so they point to a message indicating they are no longer available, or to new pages/content.

3. Archive your old site(s). Redesigning your site? Replacing it with a new version that has new content. Consider leaving the old site on your server in a Historical Site Archive area. If you don’t want search engines to index it and return pages of outdated results to your users, try using a robots.txt file that will exclude the historical pages from spidering.

4. Let the Internet Archive do the work. Read How can I get my site included in the Archive on the Internet Archive’s site. It’s a blast from the past to see older versions of sites going back to the mid-90s on the Internet Archive, and users can link to these pages, too.

5. Let search engines archive your pages. Find out how to ensure that your site is search engine optimized and that pages are not being published in a way that will cause search engine spiders to exclude them from indexing. Search Engine Watch is an excellent resource for SEO, SearchTools.com has some useful information on indexing robots and spiders, and the all-important Google provides guidelines for Webmasters on how to make your site Google-friendly.

6. Open up your content. Mirroring your content on other sites is another strategy for keeping your content alive and accessible. By licencing your content through a Creative Commons licence and/or offering it for republication or repurposing on the Internet, you can help ensure that your content stays alive and accessible. For more information, visit the Open Content Alliance, Connexions, or the University of British Columbia’s innovative Public Knowledge Project.

7. Use Universal Design principles. Last but not least, using Universal Design principles to ensure accessibility to the broadest range of users. It’s not only good from a usability perspective, but also from an archiving perspective.

Garth A. Buchholz, BA, CUA, is a certified Internet business strategist, usability analyst, researcher and publisher at DigitalPractices.

Here are 10 general tips on domain names for organizations to consider when shopping for a good domain name to register. Keep in mind these are rules of thumb, and there are often some exceptions to these, but if you research your domain names well before you register them or use them, you’ll spare yourself unnecessary time, money and aggravation. 

1. NAME LENGTH

Remembers the basics – some usability studies have found that more than 16 characters is too long for a domain name. But it depends on how you’re going to use it, too. If your intended users are likely to search for it using a long word or combination of words rather than typing out the URL, then a long domain might be the best thing in some cases.

2. TOP LEVEL DOMAINS

Consider most TLDs (top level domains) including .net, .biz, .name, and country domains, but .com is still the best. Dot org domains are for non-profit organizations, and even though this isn’t a requirement in order to register at dot org, people will assume your site is a non-profit if you use that TLD. Many country-specific domains require that you are a resident of that country in order to register a domain with that TLD, e.g. Canada’s .ca

3. TRADEMARKS

Be careful that your domain name doesn’t sound too similar to that of another company on the Web, ESPECIALLY if their name and domain name is trademarked, and ESPECIALLY if you’re in the same line of business as them. Do a few Google searches using the proposed domain name and some variations on it to see who else is using them, if anyone.

4. BRAND NAMES

Your domain name doesn’t necessarily have to be the same as your organization’s name, but it can get confusing for people if it isn’t.  If the name of your organization or brand appears to be unavailable in its most obvious format, e.g. “TheNameofMyCompany.com”, look at the possibility of using other TLDs  (see #2). Another possibility is to name a domain based on what the company is trying to achieve online. For example, if your name is ABC Plumbing and abcplumbing.com is already taken, try registering a domain name such as “abconline.com” or even the more spunky “virtualplumber.com.”

5. DOMAIN NAME VARIATIONS

If you own other domain names that aren’t linked to a site, and you’d like people searching for those names to hit your site, then you can always redirect them to your main Website. One caution: be careful of this, because sometimes search engines will index your site under one of the other domain names not the main domain name the site is hosted on.  

6. DOMAIN NAME BLOOPERS

Before you decide on a domain and register it, consider that it may not read the way you want it to when it’s read as one word, all lowercase. The Web has many funny examples of this, e.g. the travel site ChooseSpain.com” can be read as “ChoosesPain.com”

7. HYPHENATION

Many hyphenated versions of names may be available, but that doesn’t mean they’re desirable or even legal. You won’t get away with trying to register mic-rosoft.com, for example. Also, people will become confused about whether the domain name requires a hyphen or not, and if they type it in without the hyphen, they may end up on the wrong site.

8. SEARCH ENGINES

Something else to consider. In many ways, domain names don’t matter because most people are now using Google to find sites rather than typing in a URL or finding it in their Favorites/Bookmarks.

9. DESCRIPTIVE NAMES

On the other hand, sometimes it helps your search engine ranking to have a descriptive domain name as search engines will index it accordingly, e.g. “DeliciousDonuts.com.” There can be several search engine optimization considerations when researching domain names.

10. NEW WORDS AND SPELLING

Finally, you can always coin a new domain name by using a different spelling for a commonly known word or words, or by combining commonly known words, but remember that people may forget the unique spelling or the coined term if it’s not intuitive enough, or not marketed well enough.

 As a brief footnote, don’t ever forget to renew a domain name if it’s important to you, or you may never be able to reclaim it again except at a high cost.  While there is nothing wrong with reserving names (as long as you’re not reserving a name that was trademarked at the time you registered the domain), many Internet “cybersquatters”  buy up domains to resell rather than to use for themselves. 

They may contact you to offer to sell a domain name of interest, or you may even contact them if the site appears to be for sale. Let’s just say these domain names are offered at vastly inflated prices, and if you negotiate, they will usually drop their price but rarely to its true market value. 

Disclaimer: This article is offered for informational purposes as a free public service and should not be construed as legal advice. Consult your lawyer on all legal issues relating to domain names and trademarks.

Join our Live Blog for National Digital Media Day in Victoria, BC on 09.25.08

1. Create a Google Gadget.
   You can create Google Gadgets such as a countdown timer (to an event), a list (of ideas, suggestions, products, etc), a microblog (what you’re doing or working on) or a YouTube channel (videos about your company, service or product), then publish it on the Google network for other people to add to their customized iGoogle page. You can also email the Gadget link to a list of people.  
2. Post comments on related articles.
   Many news sites or ezines include an option to leave comments at the end of articles. Some like CNN even track backlinks from blogs that link to the article. Search for articles related to your company’s business, then post an intelligent response or comment on the article, including your company’s name, URL and/or email address, if possible. 
3. Write a press release.
   Your press release can be about anything, but should be tied to something timely such as a recent event or announcement. Many sites such as the ones cited here offer a free press release service. 
4. Create a Facebook app.
   Facebook makes it relatively easy to develop an application that Facebook users can add to their profiles and pages. Facebook still has some buzz in traditional media channels, so sometimes you might even get some earned media (an editorial article written about your company) because of the interest in your new Facebook app.
5. Piggyback on someone else’s email subscriber database.
   Wouldn’t it be great to get a plug for your company in someone else’s mailing list? If you know of a company or an individual (such as a blogger) with a sizeable mailing list, offer to barter some services or products in exchange for a mention in their next email newsletter or notification. If you do have your own mailing list, you can ask another list owner to include a link to your sign-up form, or offer to add their sign-up form to your page if it seems that subscribers on each site may be interested in the other site’s content as well.   

Got more freebs? Share the wealth…let us know about your tips by posting them here. 

Email: Garth@DigitalPractices.com

* Services cited in the list above were free at the time this list was published, and have been published here as a service to readers. Some of these sites may offer fee-based options as well.

If only we could rise on a weekday morning without having to put on our work clothes, start a cranky car, fight our way through smoggy traffic, pay for expensive parking stalls, then do it all over again at the end of the day. Think of how we could minimize our footprint on the environment, save ourselves money on clothes, gas, and parking, and save our companies the cost of expensive office space.   

That seems to be the common wisdom when people talk about telecommuting or telework – synonyms for the use of Internet and communications technologies to work outside the traditional office or workplace, usually at home. MSNBC.com calls it “the quiet revolution” and predicts that by 2009, 27.5% of U.S. workers won’t be driving to the office.

Governments in Canada and elsewhere are starting to take telework seriously. The Environmental Quality branch of BC’s Ministry of Environment makes this recommendation: “Consider a condensed work week or telecommuting as a way to work effectively and cut air pollution.” For many disabled employees it can also present a way to be an active member the workforce without having to undertake the challenges of commuting or office access and facilities.

According to the 2008-2009 WorldatWork Salary Budget Survey of total rewards programs used to attract and retain talent (www.worldatwork.org), telework has shown the most substantial 12-month increase in both Canada and the U.S.  Although telework in the U.S. had a significant increase – from 30% in 2007 to 42% this year – the increase in Canada was even more dramatic, rising from 25% in 2007 to 40% this year.  

“It’s been a perfect storm,” says Anne C. Ruddy, CCP, president of WorldatWork. “Rising gas prices, leading-edge technology, and the push for work-life flexibility have all come together in the past 12 months to create a pretty dramatic increase in telework across the U.S. and Canada.”

BC’s TELUS Corporation found that teleworking can increase employee productivity by about 20%. The company conducted a 2006 pilot project where the company allowed 170 employees to work at home, and not only did it increase productivity and morale, but it also saved 114 tonnes in greenhouse gases and almost 14,000 hours of time in traffic.

Yet even though more organizations in Canada and the U.S. are beginning to implement telework options or at least develop telework policies, and many employees and unions are embracing the opportunity, some employers — and even their employees – are still reluctant.

In an article in Ontario’s Business Edge magazine (www.businessedge.ca/), writer Sharon Adams says “Old-line thinking – better suited to the industrial revolution – is holding us back from the full benefits of telecommuting.”  She quotes Bob Fortier, president of the Canadian Telework Association (himself a virtual worker) who found that “There are a lot of managers who say, ‘Not on my watch.’ “

Technology such as Web-based applications, video conferencing, webcams, instant messaging, and VoIP/telephony can enable virtual workers to work from homebase much more efficiently and accountably. Organizations also have to consider other issues, though. In the Sept 3 issue of ITBusiness.ca, employers are advised to ask themselves these six questions before implementing a telework program:

1. Is full-time telecommuting a smart decision?
2. How will you define and measure performance?
3. Will creativity suffer?
4. How will telework affect collaboration?
5. What about employees “left behind” in the office?
6. Do you have an exit strategy? (i.e. if you decide to discontinue the telework option)

Here are some of the tangible benefits and potential pitfalls of telework programs — from the perspectives of employers and employees – along with recent research that has been done on this hot topic.

Telework is a great recruiting and engagement incentive.

As we noted earlier in this article from the WorldatWork survey, telework is on the rise as an incentive to attract and retain talent. Both young workers entering the workforce as well as workers closer to retirement also have an interest in the flexibility of at-home work options. And for younger workers, there is no clear line between their work-life and personal life, so it feels natural and comfortable for them to them to work from home. 

Telework offers meaningful lifestyle options so employees can have a better work/life balance. This can improve employee morale and reduce stress, with the end result of a more satisfied, stable and productive workforce. EKOS Research found that 33% of Canadians would choose telework over a salary raise, while 43% would actually quit their job to work somewhere that allows telework. 

On the other hand, older or more established workers, who haven’t experienced telecommuting and are used to being in the office, may have some reluctance, especially at mid-career. A recent U.S. survey of 700 white-collar workers reported that almost two-thirds of all the respondents expressed fear that working from home “will hinder their chances at a promotion due to the lack of contact with the employer.” About 71% said they believed their manager wants them around to prevent a decline in productivity, while another 62% said they think their employer needs them in the office to prevent communication issues.

Telework can net huge savings on the high cost of office space.

Not only can home-based employees help organizations reduce the costs of office overhead, include leases costs, taxes, energy costs, and equipment and supply costs, they can also help solve the ever-present urban issue of available office space (especially in places such as downtown Victoria). Through telework, AT & T reported saving $500 million in office costs since 1995, and IBM reduced the need for office space for a savings of $56 million per year.   

Telework can help improve the efficiency, performance and productivity of your employees.

As many organizations become more reliant on information technology for their operations and communications, teleworking can actually help companies get a better return on investment from their workplace technology. American Express reported that their teleworkers handled 26% more calls and produced 43% more business than their office-based counterparts. At IBM Canada, where 20% of the workforce teleworks, studies showed that teleworking employees were as much as 50% more productive.

However, trust – on the part of employers – remains the looming shadow behind the sunshine of telework. Production-focused workers whose output can be quantified electronically are less concern than workers whose productivity is often measured by their managers in terms of what they’re seen to be doing in the office. A series of Dilbert comic strips chronicled Dilbert’s brief telecommuting experience as he descends into comical non-productivity. It’s exactly what most employers fear, but employers who take the risk often find that the main change is the need to manage more diligently. 

“You’re trusting people to do the work,” said Steve Lundin of BigFrontier Communications group, quoted in the Sept 7 issue of the San Francisco Chronicle. . “There is some fluff time you’re paying for, but what you bill out for is far more than what you’re paying them.” Lundin added that one downside to telecommuting is the “additional management of people,” and said he has to spend more of his time speaking to his telecommuters over the phone.

Teleworking employees may also find that their collaboration and creativity in certain jobs or roles may be impacted because their physical isolation keeps them from the stimulating personal interaction they would normally have in informal or formal groups, pods and meetings. Employers can remedy this by ensuring teleworkers have opportunities to meet face-to-face regularly, and this may even reduce the number of unnecessary or unproductive meetings that are called just because workers are onsite.   

The Green Commute - telework options can show your corporate commitment to the environment.  

Your organization can improve its “green” image and show its commitment to the community by helping reduce vehicle emissions as well as saving energy and energy costs by reducing gas consumption. This can be demonstrated in hard numbers on an annual report, too. A U.S. article in the Sept 5 issue of the Hartford Courant reports that an employee with a 45-minute commute could cut his or her monthly gas expenses by 40%, or about $80, if allowed to telecommute two days a week.

Organizations that operate across several time zones or want to expand to global markets can hire and deploy teleworkers in other countries with ease.

There’s also the issue of the costs and logistics of relocating staff to other regions or even other countries. Statistics Canada reports that it costs companies an average of $42,000 to relocate workers to another city. With telework, some workers can be allowed to remain in their own hometown while conducting work for a branch in another location. 

Telework can be a selective program offered to specific categories of workers without impacting the availability of employees that are needed on-site.

ITBusiness.ca points out that telework works best for task-oriented jobs (such as IT positions) that don’t require a lot of face-to-face interaction with others. In fact, this can even help improve productivity for these types of employees who can work in a private environment without any non-work-related distractions. Call centres are increasingly using telework as a way to save costs and allow employees to handle calls routed to their homes where they can use online databases and tools to help customers resolve issues. In fact, this can even help organizations increase the number of number of customer service hours available to the public as teleworkers can work longer, later, or staggered hours at home and not have to worry about transportation or even personal safety issues. This can, however, lead to a problem with a “digital divide” separating those left behind in the office and those who are teleworking.

Telework can help reduce overtime for office staff and may even help reduce absenteeism.

When it comes to minor illnesses or health issues that might normally keep workers absent and unproductive, telework offers some employees (in some cases) the option to work from the comfort of their own home when they have minor health problems without the physical stress of having to be in the office. Less travel time also may mean less overtime costs. Absenteeism averages about 8 days a year (6.9 days for men, and 9.2 days for women) says a study Statistics Canada, and Health Canada has reported that the cost of balancing work and family is about $2.7 billion.

Canadian organizations that telework.
Source: Canadian Telework Association 

This article was originally published in Douglas Magazine. Garth A. Buchholz is the President and Chief Usability Analyst at DigitalPractices Media Inc.