Achieving a Culture of Participation and Engagement - Informing Digital Futures: Strategies for Citizen Engagement - page 204

really put to the test at the conclusion of the project after implementation
when, all too often errors, inconsistencies and unintended consequences
emerge. Part of government's responsibility is to close this gap by ensur-
ing (e.g. through their procurement practices) that external ICT developers
have explicit responsibility to apply best practice in achieving successful
engagement of users and citizens throughout the ICT development cycle -
especially in eliciting needs and in evaluating design solutions. Such a
shift in the focus of design would identify and obviate errors, increase
relevance, test acceptability and usability.
So the extent to which government requires ICT manufacturers and
suppliers to adhere to relevant design principles and policies can have
great influence in regard to promoting good design practice. Requiring
suppliers to comply with standards for usability for example would be a
major incentive for companies to meet them and provide a new and level
field to stimulate competition which can drive prices down. Government is
not generally providing this pull perhaps because of pressures to accept
lowest price tender bids in any current spending round. A broader as-
sessment of the real medium and long term costs arising from products/
systems and services that do not meet usability and other human-centred
criteria would reveal this stance to be counterproductive and short-sighted.
Governments across Europe have a real opportunity to push for national
adoption of the EU resolution for the implementation of inclusive/ universal
design/'Design for All' in all design curricula. This would serve to institu-
tionalize some important design principles throughout the European Union.
The enhanced design outcomes are likely to offer powerful competitive
advantage to the European economy.
10.5.4 Creating Capacity for Engagement/Participation
It should give pause for thought that few of us as citizens in technologi-
cally advanced nations appear to have any part to play in the technology
shaping process. As the opportunity to influence design decisions opens up
to citizens it will be important for people to develop the skills and capabili-
ties. Creating capacity to participate and engage in technology shaping and
design will need to be actively developed. Indeed this is an explicit objec-
tive in exciting and innovative community development projects in the de-
veloping world, e.g. the ActionAid Reflect ICTs Project (Beardon 2005).
In these projects, there are facilitated opportunities for citizen learning
through discussing and analysing local issues. The possibilities for eco-
nomic and social change are opened up by learning of the rich possibilities
and alternative ways of harnessing ICT capabilities in the community.