Giving a Voice to the ‘Hard to Hear’ - Informing Digital Futures: Strategies for Citizen Engagement - page 78

Assuming that the powerful drivers that now exist for technological
change will continue to exert an inexorable influence for greater citizen
engagement, the challenge of determining who to engage and how to engage
them looms large. Chapter 4 has provided glimpses of 'how to engage' by
describing a small sample of the many successful citizen engagement activi-
ties which are being undertaken across the globe - and later chapters will
provide more guidance.
We begin by outlining the special characteristics of the 'hard to hear'
which are relevant to their engagement. Examples of some ground-
breaking projects and initiatives which have been used to engage success-
fully with such groups will then be described and discussed.
5.1 Why are Some Citizens 'Hard to Hear'?
There are two main reasons which can prevent some citizens from en-
gagement. The first is that they have simply not been identified as being
legitimate stakeholders in a particular initiative. As a consequence, design-
ers, developers and policy makers have not made efforts to communicate
with them and involve them in decision making. The second is that the
citizens themselves may lack (or perceive that they lack) the motivation,
confidence or resources - whether time, knowledge or skills - needed in
order to engage in an initiative. Identification of those citizens who are at
risk from exclusion for either of these reasons is therefore a crucial first
step in seeking to engage them.
There is an old adage which says “ what the eye doesn't see, the heart
doesn't grieve over .” In other words, if you are not aware of something,
then you are not going to concern yourself with it. In the first instance to
give citizens a voice therefore, government, business, as well as ICT de-
velopers and designers must “ see them ”, and recognise the diversity that
exists. It can be difficult to recognise just how many different kinds of citi-
zens there are. There is certainly evidence that designers tend to design for
people like themselves - small wonder, therefore, that many of the hi-tech
gadgets which are on the market appeal so strongly to the young, the afflu-
ent, the male. Norman (2000) points out that designers, who, in practice
are often engineers or managers, “ tend to feel that they are humans, there-
fore they can design something for other humans just as well as the trained
interface expert .” Cooper (1999) puts it in a typically succinct way: “ pro-
grammers aren't evil. They work hard to make their software easy to use.
Unfortunately, their frame of reference is themselves, so they only make it
easy to use for other software engineers, not for normal human beings .”