Government on the Internet: The Citizens Perspective

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Government on the Internet The Citizens
Perspective

• Rowena Cullen
• Peter Hernon

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Study Purpose

• Obtain the views of citizens from different
  socio-economic groups and from different sectors
  about
• What New Zealand government information (national
  and local) they sought and what government
  services they used
• Their use of government on the Internet in
  comparison to other channels for information
  gathering
• Their experiences in dealing with government,
  especially through the Internet

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Those Experiences Related to

• How they locate the information they needed
• What barriers they encountered

• Their views on whether e-government advanced
  democratic processes
• Their level of trust and confidence in government
  information and services on the Internet

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Data Collection

• Focus group interviews
• Questionnaires for focus group participants to
  complete

• Walk-through observations involving completion of
  set tasks

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Data Collection

• Focus group interviews (2 related to trust and 10
  with specific groups)
• Wellington
• Auckland
• Morrinsville
• Hawera

• Disabled citizens
• Maori
• Pacific peoples
• New immigrants
• 5-6. Business community (Auckland/Wellington)
• Rural residents
• Senior citizens
• Students
• Working professionals

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General Findings

• 72 percent of the participants (not counting the
  new immigrants) used government on the Internet,
  mostly on an infrequent basis

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Characteristics and Preferences of Key Groups

• Disabled - activists, keen to be informed,seek
  policies, legislation, info for personal use.
  Needs re web site accessibility
• Maori - range of uses course info, student
  allowances,contract/tendering, routine personal
  use. Use TPK, but want more Maori presence on all
  sites
• Pacific peoples - wide range of access, skills,
  usage. E-mail and web sites used to share Pacific
  information. Lack of credit cards for transactions

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• 5. New immigrants - prefer minimal contact with
  government, use public libraries. Ongoing
  immigration needs. Language a barrier
• 6. Rural - 24/7 access important despite
  connections. Focus on business of farming
• 7. Business communities. Highest use, regular
  contact with government agencies, and ministers.
  Project driven
• 8. Students - loans/allowances, normal contact
  regarding licences, etc. Study purposes

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Some Topics within Education

• Finding out about entitlements (as a returning
  student)
• Seeking information about NZCEA
• Looking at a new school (e.g., ERO reports)
• Seeking research grant applications
• Wanting to know about the status of (a) a
  tertiary project OR (b) peer support programmes
• Seeking information about teacher registration

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Another Example (Tax/Finance)

• Taxes
• Information about paying taxes
• Tax code
• Tax regulations (for personal income tax)
• Tax return
• Tax refund

• Seeking IRD number
• Seeking information about GST
• Information and services

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Contact with Government

• For many the preferred method is the phone
• Like to interact with a person
• May want to develop/maintain a relationship so
  rely on phone

• May go to web to obtain contact information (then
  call)

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Method of Contacting Government

• New Zealand (our studyn65)
• Phone (49)
• Web site (39)
• In person (29)
• E-mail (26)
• Letter (15)
• Other (4)
• 89.4 multiple means

• U.S. (Pew Research Centern2,925 Americans, July
  2003)
• Phone (42)
• Web site (29)
• In person (20)
• E-mail (18)
• Letter (17)
• 22 multiple means

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Government Portalhttp//www.govt.nz

• Few familiar with it
• Those familiar did not rely on it

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Publics View of Portal

• Find it slow and ineffective
• Lists departments and agencies without telling
  you about them
• Presumes some knowledge of (and familiarity with)
  government
• Conclusion
• Prefer to google
• Portal not integral to their information
  gathering

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Some Likes

• Access is 24/7/365
• Good source of base information
• Web sites may provide contact information
• Can browse at their leisure
• Like web sites that are well laid out, easy to
  use, and have good search features
• Access to legislation (gratis)

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Some Dislikes

• Functionality of web sites varies from department
  to department
• Favoured some standardisation across web sites
• Language used is confusing
• Sites may appear crowdedpacked content
• Number of clicks to retrieve information may be
  high
• Cannot complete and return forms online (pdf
  documents may be hard to download)
• Needed information may be at edge of screen and
  therefore missed

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Taxonomy of Barriers

• Physical (technical and infrastructure issues)
• Skill-based (limited knowledge about how/where
  to search, relevant terminology, and how to
  navigate a web site
• Attitudinal (no perceived need, preferences for
  other types of contact, comfortable with phone
  and other methods of contact, and issues of
  trust)
• Content-based (quality and relationship to their
  need)
• Information architecture (knowing what the web
  site should contain and how best to present the
  content for effective use)

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Trust as an Issue
Aspects
In Government In Internet In Government on
Internet
Confidence Intrusion in Daily Life
Privacy Security
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Confidence

• Refers to the quality of the information
  provided, the currentness of information and the
  recency of the publication date of web sites
• A factor may be the type of information
• Such as press release (viewed as self-serving and
  less trustworthy) or policy document

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Confidence

• The working professionals questioned the version
  of the information
• Is it in draft or final form
• Which version has been archived?
• Where is the authoritative version if the pdf
  version is not a faithful rendition of the actual
  document?
• If I see typos and other errors in proofreading,
  I assume the document is half-finished and not
  the final report

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Intrusion of Government in Daily Lives

• Big Brother government watches the public a
  surveillance society
• Working professionals
• Pacific peoples
• Maori

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Privacy

• Reluctant to provide personal information online
  to government
• Belief that government has personal information
  on them
• Would like government sites to indicate that they
  protect any information provided and how they
  protect that information

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Security

• Assume government sites block viruses, computer
  hacking, etc.
• Assume any site ending in .govt is government and
  is protected (secure)
• A number of respondents wondered How well would
  government protect email messages it receives?
• Forward/edit messages --Archive
  messages
• Delete messages (though still on hard drive)

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Pockets of Distrust

• Working professionals
• Maori

• Pacific peoples
• Students
• Distrust may relate to government and as a
  byproduct the information provided

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Walk-Throughs (Five Tasks)

• Spraying for painted apple moth in Auckland
• Forms for tenancy agreement and bond
• How much is the single pension and living alone
  allowance
• Book a DOC camp site at Elaine Bay
• Find a recent report on increase in Maori life
  expectancy

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Codes for Previous Slide

• NA Task not attempted
• NCTask not completed
• C Task essentially completed, although
  participant has not identified the information
  exactly

• FCTask fully completed relevant information
  identified
• ETask ended for other reasons
• PParticipant would phone at this point

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Walk-Throughs (Task Completion)
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Recommendations (for Web sites)
Standardizing/improving design Link information
between sites Improve accessiblity of
content Provide date of last revision Compliance
with Web guidelines (government and
disability) Develop online assistance and more
contact informationencouraging e-mail
contact Acknowledge web sites for quality service
delivery Improve online forms (complete and
return them online)
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More Recommendations
Promote multi-channel communication between
citizens and government, with the Internet (web
sites and e-mail as one channel) Provide free
access for those with their own computers and
those without (e.g., the equivalent of a 0800
number but for use of government on the
Internet) Offer incentives to encourage
businesses (e.g., small businesses) to engage in
e-compliance
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Publics Perspective of E-Government
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Performance Metrics
Outcomes
Inputs
Outcomes
Satisfaction
Satisfaction
Guidelines compliance
Service quality
Service Quality
Outputs