Citizen-Driven Design: Leveraging Participatory Design of E-Government 2.0 Through Local and Global Collaborations

The goal of this paper is to present how citizen-driven design of e-government can be promoted through trans-local cooperation. Our case study consists of the Augment project, which focuses on the design of a mobile service for co-creation of local accessibility. Our approach is action research based in the Scandinavian tradition of Participatory design. Experiences from this project highlight issues concerning how to reconfigure the basis for design of public services. In order to cultivate spaces for citizen-driven design and local innovation, we made iterative use of global collaborations. In the initial phase, influences from R&D cooperation with India provided new spaces for participatory design practices. In the next phase, a proof-of-concept process allowed for broader local stake-holder involvement. In the third phase, the service concept was shared and expanded with partner regions in Europe through exchange of Best Practices. Currently, we are moving towards phase four, the commercialization process. Beyond the iterative design of the mobile service itself, and what trans-local collaboration contributed in this context, we also discuss reconceptualization of innovation as incremental change. We argue that transnational collaboration can be deliberately made use of for leveraging incremental change on a local level and strengthening regional innovation systems and practices.

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