Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
10 Achieving a Culture of Participation
and Engagement
The central theme of this topic is that ICT design and development prac-
tices informed by citizens and enriched by principles drawn from several
design approaches - especially a sociotechnical one - promise wide-
ranging and rich rewards for 21 st century society. Yet we reported earlier
that we could find few cases of citizen participation/engagement in ICT
development and delivery, beyond website design projects. This was sur-
prising given that early participatory design initiatives were very promis-
ing in organisational contexts. It seems that the custom and practice of
participation has not spread to influence the design of large scale ICT sys-
tems used by the public. This is disappointing and suggests we have a long
way to go to embed participation and engagement in integrated ICT design
approaches. Substantial funding of effort in countless projects to generate
design guidelines over more than three decades has failed to achieve sig-
nificant change in ICT design practice. The time to take a new approach is
long overdue. In the zeitgeist of the early 21 st century a major shift seems
timely and eminently possible as several disparate strands are coming to-
gether: sound research and good practice (the necessary 'know-how') in
projects and initiatives around the world; important drivers for change in so-
ciety (the momentum); and, perhaps most significantly, enthusiasm for
change within the IT profession offer unprecedented opportunities.
Some of the barriers to participation/engagement in the ICT context
have been described in Chapter 6. In addition to these, another stumbling
block which the authors have encountered but for which we have no docu-
mented research is the sheer tedium associated with 'user issues' in the
minds of some managers and IT professionals. The problems of poor us-
ability, lack of relevance for users, especially members of the public, nega-
tive user responses and limited uptake are so familiar and have been
around for so long that they have become a tedious backcloth to the use of
ICT. The rhetoric of user participation as a solution has become boring and
it seems that for many ICT designers, engrossed in demanding, technically
complex software design, it is unwelcome and unrewarding. While this is
entirely understandable, it is a position that denies designers the advantages of
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