Mapping out and constructing the needs - a pilot study of on-line public services and citizens involvement

Abstract

This report gives a presentation of work in progress, a pilot study concerning the setting up of public services in the local context of the county of Blekinge, South-eastern Sweden. The main aim with this discussion is to support a more reflective and participatory attitude towards design and development of public systems among municipalities and other service producers/providers in the future. The way in which I will do this study is to examine a selection of methods, or types of needs analysis or needs assessments, used by different actors and producers of public services in order to get a picture of various needs among the users. One part of my study is to look at service providers and their use of explicit techniques, such as questionnaires, larger surveys and work carried out with the help of focus groups. A basic question to put forward is what role do these explicit surveys play for the various participating actors - including citizens - and, in the long run, for the design-choices? The mapping work described here is being carried out within the context of a larger on-going research and development project concerning the continuous design and development of IT in use in public service. (I)