What public services should be digitalised? A citizen-centred analysis of what public services are suitable for digital channels

The objective in this project is to critically analyze – from the citizens’ perspectives – what public services are suitable for digital communication channels. Current research either black box the services themselves completely or treats them as generic or very simple phenomena. There is an underlying assumption that all public services can be successfully digitalized. We seek to challenge this assumption, both from the point of view of the citizen, and from an economic point of view.

Based on our results, we also seek to develop guidelines for how to digitize the delivery of, and communication surrounding, public services, i.e. how to design websites, self-service applications, phrases on the telephone etc.

This research goal is concretized in four sub-goals:

WP 1. Identify the public services that generate the most and the least traffic on digital and traditional communication channels (Quantitative analysis). I am PI on this work package.

WP 2. Create an analytical tool for identifying public service characteristics from citizens’ perspectives (literature review and theory development)

WP 3. Explore how different characteristics of public services relate with citizens’ channel choice (Qualitative analysis based on observations, in-situ interviews and workshops)

WP 4. Evaluate which public services should be digitalized and give guidelines how to digitalize through participatory design and direct involvement first with citizens and then with service designers.