Citizen Centred e-Government:
an HCI approach
Leonardo Sandoval
A meme introduction to e-government
• Delivery of government information and services to
citizens through the Internet
(UNDESA, 2001; West, 2003)
Example: e-FOIA system (US)
• 1 citizen request
• 29 Agencies
• 285 Offices
• 285 Websites!!!
• All with different forms!!!
• Bureaucratic paradigm
(Ho, 2002)
• Low adoption after 20 years
(OECD, 2009; Verdegem et al., 2010; Eurostat, 2014; Wang, 2014)
Citizen Centred Approach
• Promoted by International Organisations since last decade
(OECD, 2005, 2009; UNDESA, 2012; European Commission, 2013)
• Focuses on integration and rationalisation of e-services
• Flagship initiative: One Stop Portals (e.g. GOV.UK)
“Before we came along, there were more than
1,700 different government websites in the U.K.
Each one had a different look and feel. Each one
had a different user experience. In each one the
language was different.”
Ben Terret on GOV.UK
businessweek.com
20th March 2014
How User Centred are
Citizen Centred Services?
• Gap: few references to HCI in the e-government literature
(Van den Haak et al., 2009; Sørum et al., 2012; de Róiste, 2013)
• Citizen centred solutions may still miss user needs
• Pilot study
– 4 tasks on 2 One Stop Portals (Canada & UK)
– 16 Citizens & 3 HCI Experts
– 3 HCI Methods (CVP, CHE, AI)
Results
– Usability problems: Canada.Ca = 43 | GOV.UK = 69
– UCDE: + 10 heuristics violated according to experts
– UX: Aesthetics did not affect perception of usability
– Perception of usability was related to objective usability measures
(number and severity of problems)
My research
• Understand the role of interaction in egov UX
• Focus on different
– Types of users
– e-gov areas and technologies
– HCI methods
• Aims
– Increase the body of knowledge on e-government
– Integrate HCI approaches in e-government evaluation
– Develop a method for comparative studies on citizen centricity
Thanks
References
• de Róiste, M. (2013). Bringing in the users: The role
for usability evaluation in eGovernment. Government
Information Quarterly, 30(4), 441-449.
• Eurostat. (2014). Individuals using the Internet for
interacting with public authorities. [Online]. Available at:
http://appsso.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/nui/show.do?dataset=isoc_bde15ei&lang=en
[Accessed 31 August 2014]
• Ho, A. (2002). Reinventing Local Governments and
the E-Government Initiative. Public Administration
Review, 62(4), 434–444.
• OECD. (2005). E-government for Better Government.
Organisation for Economic Co-operation and
Development, Public Management Service (OECD).
Paris, France: OECD Publishing.
• OECD. (2009). Rethinking e-government services
(user-centred approaches). Organisation for Economic
Co-operation and Development, Public Management
Service (OECD). Paris, France: OECD Publishing.
• Sørum, H., Andersen, K. N., & Vatrapu, R. (2012).
Public websites and human–computer interaction: an
empirical study of measurement of website quality and
user satisfaction. Behaviour & Information Technology,
31(7), 697–706.
• UNDESA. (2001). Benchmarking E-government: A
Global Perspective : Assessing the Progress of the UN
Member States. New York, NY, USA: UN Department of
Economic and Social Affairs (UNDESA)
• UNDESA. (2012). United Nations Global E-government
Survey 2012: E-Government for the People. New York,
NY, USA: UN Department of Economic and Social
Affairs (UNDESA).
• UNDESA. (2014). United Nations Global E-government
Survey 2014: E-Government for the Future We Want.
New York, NY, USA: UN Department of Economic and
Social Affairs (UNDESA).
• van den Haak, M. J., de Jong, M. D., & Schellens, P. J.
(2009). Evaluating municipal websites: A methodological
comparison of three think-aloud variants. Government
Information Quarterly, 26(1), 193-202.
• Verdegem, P., Stragier, J., & Verleye, G. (2010).
Measuring for Knowledge: A Data-Driven Research
Approach for eGovernment. Electronic Journal of EGovernment, 8(2), 227–236.
• Wang, F. (2014). Explaining the low utilization of
government websites: Using a grounded theory
approach. Government Information Quarterly 31, 610621.
• West, D. M. (2003). Global E-Government, 2003.
(Centre for Public Policy Brown University, Ed.). United
States.: Princeton University Press.