An User‐Centric Check of the Available e‐Government Services in Europe
Alessio Gugliotta, Francesco Niglia and Laura Schina INNOVA spa, Rome, Italy a. gugliotta @ innova‐eu. net f. niglia @ innova‐eu. net l. schina @ innova‐eu. net
Abstract: The success and sustainability of the e‐Government Services seems to be strictly related to the adoption of the“ user‐centric approach” during the services development process, in which citizens / end users are considered the real source of knowledge and inspiration for building added value public services. On the basis of this assumption, this work describes the result of the analysis of the application of the user‐centricity approaches in a list of running e‐Government services. The main scope of the analysis is to have a global vision about the actual usability of these cases in other environments and propose to the Community at large insights and recommendations for enhancing the use of usercentricity in Europe. The analysis has been carried out within the activities of the NET‐EUCEN network: the 40 cases discussed in this study belong to the repository of more than 70 experiences deeply analysed by the network, retained as actually interesting among more than 450 cases filtered in the ePractice portal, as they are characterized by( at least) two out three of the user‐centricity criteria measuring the User Involvement: 1. Co‐design; 2. Development and Implementation; 3. Deployment and Running. The overall analysis has been enriched by the comparison in the International Arena against the scouted best practices of Bahrain, Canada, Dubai, Singapore and the U. S., so to build a global positioning for European scenarios; it has been introduced a global competitiveness 4‐level mask able to provide also a graphic positioning on the“ competitiveness reference system”. This study brought us to have a more coherent vision highlighting the limits and potentialities of the cases, in terms of the application of the different services to the users and business perspectives. This approach brought an added value to the whole process of bringing the user‐centricity in the European Countries since it provides, at a glance, good quality examples to be reused and a preliminary feasibility analysis. The most important result is represented by the alignment of Europe with the rest of user‐centric offer worldwide. We would underline as the methodology developed for the cases study analysis can be easily adopted in other analysis focused on network studies and can be even standardised to identify the main bottlenecks, technical challenges, acceptance problematic and mass‐user needs.
Keywords: user‐centricity, service, evaluation, transferability, citizens, benchmark, business
1. Introduction
One of the most impacting and emerging trend in the Information and Communication Technologies( ICTs) is the increase of new communication tools enabling the participation of different stakeholders in the decision making processes referred to important issues. This new orientation promotes the usage of a bunch of innovative applications based on the Web 2.0 that probably are the most featured and simple technology enabling the user centricity and permeating different contexts( A. Bhargav‐Spantzel et al. 2006),( M. Quasthoff and C. Meinel 2007). Websites as Wikipedia, Flicker, YouTube, and others similar show how the end user is now assuming the content creator role too, providing all kinds of multimedia content from expert knowledge and information to video and images( Caetano et a. 2007). Within this context, the NET‐EUCEN network’ main scope is to enhance the( application of) user centricity in eGovernance and this document represents one of the main steps towards this target since it provides an analysis of good examples that can be used by European central and local administrations in the short term.
The aim of this work is to outline the analytical figures that represent the“ best out of the best” within a set of examples of running services that are characterised by the application of some aspects of the user‐centricity methodology. This step represents a check of examples of services that might be really of interest and effective for carrying out the“ enhancement” of the user‐centricity.
After, this introduction, the second section describes the purpose of the study in the double context of: 1) the NET‐EUCEN network and 2) the user‐centricity paradigm at large. The third section provides an outline of the sources and the sample used in the study, while the fourth part of the document describes the methodology followed for carrying out the analysis of case studies. Finally we conclude, in section 5, with the evidences about the level of user centricity approaches adopted in designing, developing and delivering e‐Government
230