Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
them, they continue to change after you have delivered them. Political will
changes, consumer values change, societal needs change. In this sense, all
systems are but pilots - all systems change all the time! Furthermore, hu-
man systems - unlike bridges, ships or airplanes, are too complex for
complete analysis and are not amenable to a fixed design specification.
Rather than resenting change and attempting “
complete and consistent
”
specifications, therefore, we should embrace the dynamics of inevitable
change and involve stakeholders in an evolutionary, incremental design
process.
Framing the creation of a sociotechnical system as the primary de-
sign objective of ICT development helps to make explicit the way in
which the citizen relates to the technical components of the system. Using
e-government as an example, each of us as members of the public will
have hopes, expectations, aspirations and fears about the technical systems
with which government wishes us to interact. For us to readily embrace, or
at least accept, a given system or service, first we need to know it exists,
then what it offers and finally that it has some utility and relevance for us.
Delivering an outcome which satisfies these criteria requires the ICT de-
velopment team to understand what we regard as useful and relevant and
to make their design decisions accordingly. The only real source of such
knowledge is ourselves as citizens. Creating ICT design outputs which
meet our needs therefore requires techniques to be in place to elicit our as-
pirations and needs. These techniques need to used as an integral part of
the design and development process.
A report commissioned by the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister
(ODPM) from the Centre for Urban and Regional Development Studies,
University of Newcastle upon Tyne includes the observation that the ICT
development process underway for e-Government is not participatory in
nature although the formally stated objectives for e-government in the UK
include reducing social exclusion and promoting democracy (Office of the
Deputy Prime Minister 2003). (This certainly does not comply with Cherns'
first principle of compatibility). Appropriate participative/consultative exer-
cises with the public to check design assumptions, for example, would
have revealed at the outset important perceptions, hopes, fears and expec-
tations regarding electronic service delivery of local government services.
Using this information to inform design decisions might well have avoided
some of the causes of slow adoption. It is paradoxical that the design proc-
esses used to develop ICT systems intended explicitly to promote partici-
pation of the public have not themselves been participatory in nature - and
it is clearly time to change this situation.
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