Why do we involve users?The role of the HCI practitioner in e-Government projects

Asbjørn Følstad

SINTEF ICT, Norway

Background: EFFIN

• EFFIN = Efficiency through user involvement• 2002-2006• Financed through Norwegian Research Council• Research on methods and practices for user

involvement in e-Government development projects• Partners:

– SINTEF– Centre for technology, innovation and culture, University of

Oslo– Uppsala university– University of Melbourne– Accenture– CapGemini

e-Government goals and challenges

• Ambitious goals– Citizen-centric service provision– Increased service quality– Increased efficiency– Lowered cost– Improved democratic processes

• Important challenges– Non-commercial -> no unified measure of service effect– Serve all vs. increased efficiency– Public sector procurement processes– Multiple and distributed stakeholders– Limited direct participation opportunities

Assumptions

• Initial assumptions: – Usability important for e-Government services– Need to focus on user involvement

• Survey and surprise: – e-Government project leaders interviewed on user involvement

in own projects– Fairly widespread user involvement

• Revised assumptions– User involvement and usability not necessarily connected– Need better understanding of user involvement in

e-Government projects

• i2010 (EC) & eNorge2009 (Norway):– Citizen orientation and inclusion strongly accentuated– Explicit ambitions for user-friendliness and accessibility

”making sure that ICT benefit all citizens; making public services better,

more cost effective and more accessible; and improving quality of life”

(i2010, Section4 ”Inclusion, better public services and quality of life”)

Agreement on the importance of user involvement

• Pearce, Government IT projects, 2003 & Kristensen, The Hidden Threat to e-Government, 2001– Need to improve …– Requirement specifications– Procurement processes– Responsibility and commitment – Project management– End-user involvement

• Følstad, Jørgensen, Krogstie (NordiCHI -04):– e-Government project leaders acknowledge importance of user

involvement• Preferably in requirements specification phase

– More than three user involvement activities pr. project reported on average

– 17 categories of actitivies of user involvement• Include e.g.: User representatives in project team, reference

groups, pilot trials, user testing

… but do we agree on what user involvement is?

The misconception of ”User involvement=HCI”

• HCI: Wide range of methods and tools– analysis– requirements– design– evaluation

User and stakeholder analysisTask analysisContext analysis

WorkshopsInterviewsField studiesPersonasStoryboarding

Card sortingStory boardingGuidelinesDesign patternsRapid prototyping

User testsField evaluationsHeuristic evaluationsWalkthroughsQuestionnaires

Increased focus on user-involvement must mean increased utilization of HCI methods!

User involvement in a government project perspective• User involvement is rife

– Obligation: Openness to the public• Tradition for open planning and decision processes e.g. through audits

– Obligation: Equal service level to all citizens• Interaction with user- and citizen organisations

– Tradition: Democratic participation within the organisation• Empowerment of employees

• Obligations and tradition -> Practices of user involvement– User representatives in project team– User/stakeholder representatives in reference groups/steering

committees– Formal and semi-formal audits for plans and specifications– Workshops with user- and stakeholder representatives in

planning and specification– Public meetings and other information activities

?!?

Two goals of user involvement

• No HCI monopoly on user involvement• Need to find out what makes the HCI practitioner

special

• Question: Why do we involve the users?

• Answer:1. Enable user participation

2. Provide input to the system development process

Relationship of practices and goals

User participation and ownership

Usability

Government partici-patory practices

HCI methods

Integrating or separating different practices

• Important to differentiate between the two goals– Understand and communicate strengths and limitations of

methods and practices– Valuable in early planning

• Project characteristics decide whether integration or separation is most efficient– Integration example: Online application for drivers licence– Separation example: Mobile application for patient data at

hospitals

Online application for drivers licence

• Project owner: ”Statens vegvesen”

• Pilot version exist for the most used class of licences

• Expects great reduction in cost + improved service

• Challenges:– Make online service provision

more attractive to end-users than current options

– Motivate driving schools– Motivate employees

• Customer service personnel information meeting– Information activities– Unstructured feed-back activities

• Expert walkthrough of pilot version– Domain experts – customer service personnel– Scenario-based structured evaluation– User problems and design suggestions for final version

• Integrated activities – in total serving both goals

User involvement in the drivers licence project – example activities

Mobile application for patient data at hospitals

• Project owner: MediCom• Trial versions in use at

selected hospitals• Expects increased quality

and efficiency• Challenges:

– Make solution sufficiently useful

– Convince hospital management

User involvement in the mobile hospital application – example activities

• User involvement through pilot trials– Selected nurses and doctors in selected hospitals uses the

system for a trial period– Feedback and evaluation activities

• Expert walkthrough with domain experts– Domain experts – nurses with at least 1 year working

experience and basic ICT competency– Scenario-based structured evaluation– User problems and design suggestions for next version

• Separated activities due to developer relationship with potential customers

Conclusion

• Agreement on the importance of user involvement in e-Government development projects

• … but not necessarily agreement on what user involvement is

• Possible misconception of “user-involvement=HCI”• Justify the HCI practitioner through the two goals of

user involvement1. Participation

2. Input to system development process

• Thank you for your attention!