Högskolan i Skövde

It has been argued that user participation is important when public authorities develop e-services. At the same time there is limited research on the usefulness of existing user participation approaches in public e-service development. In this paper we, therefore, analyze how the three user participation approaches participatory design, user-centered design, and user innovation - meet the strategic e-service goals of the EU and the US. In doing so, we identify three challenges that need to be considered when choosing among these approaches: 1) unclear user target segments can impede the fulfillment of usability and relevance goals, 2) the nature of participation can impede the fulfillment of democracy goals. and 3) lack of adequate skills can impede the fulfillment of efficiency goals. (C) 2012 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

It is evident that user participation is a vital component for successful public e-service development.  However, it is also apparent that there is little guidance in e-government research about how user participation should be implemented in practice. Some high level guidelines can be found regarding user participation design schools but there is very little guidance in existing research regarding how these design schools can be implemented in practice. In this paper we have explored public administrations’ experience of user participation, both in general systems development and in development of public e-services, in order to identify basic requirements that have to be fulfilled when implementing user participation in public e-service development. Thereafter we have applied these requirements on commonly used techniques to implement user participation in the light of three design schools: Participatory Design, User Centered Design, and User Innovation. Our results show that techniques to implement user participation in public e-service development must be adjusted to limited resources in terms of time and money as well as short development projects.

The increased interest for user participation in development of public electronic services (public e-services for short) is expected to bring similar value as it has done in other systems development projects. Existing research, however, has shown that introducing user participation to public e-service development is associated with a number of challenges. We have in this paper explored the challenges a) getting users to participate, and b) lacking adequate skills, in the context of three user participation schools. Our interview results show that citizens in general are interested to participate in public e-service development, and favour user participation schools with a high degree of active participation. Moreover, citizens’ ability to participate is high with respect to ICT-knowledge. However, their knowledge of laws, regulations and business processes related to public authorities in general is low, thus limiting citizens’ ability to participate.

Today there is an increased interest in user participation in development of public e-services, since it is expected to bring similar value as it has done in other types of systems development. Existing research, however, has shown that introducing  user participation to public e-service development is associated with a number of challenges. In this paper we have explored three user participation schools, Participatory Design, User Centered Design and User Innovation, with regard to two challenges: a) businesses employees' current mandate and willingness to participate in public e-service development and b) business employees' ability to participate in public e-service development. Our interview results show that businesses employees do have mandate to participate and also want to do so. Moreover, business employees' ability to participate is high with respect to ICT knowledge but rather low with respect to knowledge regarding public authorities' business processes. In addition, their knowledge about laws and regulations that affect public authorities is limited. Altogether, this limits the possibilities to apply user participation schools, such as User Innovation, which rely on a high degree of user-responsibility in identifying problems and solutions.

For decades, user participation has brought value to various systems development projects. Today, there are expectations that public e-service development will experience the same benefits. However, existing research has shown that introducing user participation into public e-service development can be challenging. In this study, we interviewed citizens in order to explore their willingness and ability to participate in public e-service development according to three user participation schools: User-Centred Design, Participatory Design and User Innovation. Our findings show that citizens in general are willing to participate, but their ability to do so is limited. Based on our findings, we developed nine propositions to explain citizens' willingness and ability to participate in public e-service development. The propositions contribute to practice by acting as a tentative guide for systems developers when they use user participation schools as inspiration in public e-service projects. They also act as a starting point for future research into conditions for user participation in public e-service development.