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practice. While local authorities in the UK have been consulted by Gov-
ernment about the development of e-government strategies and systems,
there is little evidence of systematic or widespread participation of other
stakeholders, particularly citizens. This demonstrates the gap between UK
Government aspirations for improving participation and social inclusion,
and the activities which are actually taking place.
3.2 The Benefits of Citizen Engagement
The benefits of actively engaging citizens in designing the world around
them are numerous and diverse in nature. This section reviews the wide
ranging, and sometimes unplanned, benefits which derive from engaging
citizens in different ways and in different roles in a variety of projects and
initiatives. This includes emerging e-government and e-commerce applica-
tions as well as an array of products. Although emphasis will be placed in
this topic upon electronic systems and services, the benefits also apply to
other domains such as product design and building design, where there is
an equally strong case for developing products and facilities which are ac-
cessible to all and which meet the real needs of consumers and users.
3.2.1 Better Understanding of Needs and Requirements
From the citizens' perspective, the advantages of having a voice in shaping
their environment and the nature of services and products can be profound
and far-reaching. The experience of participation offers opportunities for
individuals to articulate their hopes, fears, aspirations, problems and frus-
trations with their on-going life experiences. These reported perceptions,
real life experiences and goals of individual stakeholders in society are of-
ten important and sometimes fundamental to the proper specification and
verification of design or process requirements to be met by ICTs. Im-
proved and validated requirements specifications lead to better design. At a
later stage in the design lifecycle, resultant design prototypes, and simula-
tions can be tested with relevant user groups, generating early feedback on
citizen-consumer responses. Thus a significant benefit of citizen engage-
ment is its impact on the design of the environment in which we live, on
the manufactured products and on the raft of conventional and e-services
we use to conduct our lives in the Information Society.
Feedback gained before a system is built can be used to make improve-
ments which would be impossible or extremely expensive if flaws were to
be discovered at a later stage of the design. For citizens/consumers there
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