Philadelphia Public Computer Centers Survey

I'm designing a survey to administer at recreation centers and libraries to get a sense of what people get out of the city's public computing infrastructure, what people seek to get that isn't available, and what they assume isn't available but would like to see. I would expect the survey to be filled out when a user is done with their session on the computer, so that they'll have a sense of whether they had achieved what they came to achieve on the computers.

I'd probably be violating all sorts of human subject research rules by just going in and asking people to take the survey, but if I can't get explicit permission, that's what'll happen.

The survey is at http://bit.ly/8XwlRn. It is still evolving at this point. Most importantly, I have to get people to look over it so that I can get it into some more normal language.

Update: So, I've gotten a couple of pretty good pieces of feedback since I posted this yesterday. First, from @digitallogic. Noting the fact that people are often unaware of the realities of various available technologies and so are unable to determine certian changes that would provide them with a meaningful impact, he says:

The ideal approach would be to follow someone through their whole usage and observe where improvements could be made, though this may be a better in a business environment due to the nature of tasks be performed and obvious privacy issues.

Barring that, hopefully these might go more in that direction:

• Is there anything you would have liked to do on the computer today which you were unable to?
  
• Other than your primary goal (check email, do homework, read websites etc), what did you spend most of your time on? (wording on this is weird, trying to see if there's some major hurdle that could be over come, ie - 5 mins to check email but 15 mins to log in)

The next bit is from @beingpurposeful. She recommends that I stay away from negative questions, as value biases are more easily built into these. To ask something and not its inverse paints that thing as notable (i.e., abnormal). Sure, I have my own value biases, but I'd do well to protect the survey from these as much as I can.

So, I have to build these suggestions into the survey. Thanks!

Geniuses in Community Computer Centers

I was at the Apple store the other night, and it dawned on me that Philadelphia's computer centers should employ Apple Geniuses. They should be intimate with the inns and outs of the machines in the centers. They should have a thorough knowledge of the city's technology infrastructure, what you can do with it, and how it can solve your problems. At each center the geniuses should report to the community they serve, as well as to the Division of Technology, maybe on alternating weeks.

This wouldn't just be of service to the technically challenged community members, but would also help the DoT keep a pulse on how city residents are trying to use the centers—what they're doing and what they'd like to do that they're not currently able to.

Now, I'm not just saying that you should put tech-savvy people in the centers. I have no idea how Apple trains and prepares their Geniuses, but the patience, warmth, and passion about the technology they're showcasing is what makes Apple's Geniuses work. Good customer service. That's probably the hard part, but it's also the most important. I'd take a passionnate and compassionnate person over an actual tech genius who was cold and impatient any day. Though, of course, I'd prefer a passionate and compassionate bona fide tech genius. Maybe it's something you have to select for in the interview process.

Todo: Do some research into how the city's computer centers are currently staffed/supported.

The Tension between User-centered Design and E-government Services

Here's an excellent talk by Nalini Kitamraju, assistant professor at the University of Twente in the Netherlands, for Harvard's Berkman Center for Internet & Society on the tension in creating e-government services using user-centered design principles.

This one's highly recommended for anyone interested in how governments can better interact with citizens in the digital age. To be honest, the lessons from the talk are not limited to e-government; they can be applied to government in general. However, as we're fumbling through figuring out how to best use the tools we've developed over the last half-century or so, the video provides some great food for thought.

Nalini Kotamraju on the Tension between User-centered Design and E-government Services

Individuals and institutions are slower to adopt e-government services due to a lack of user centricity in design and development. Work with PortNL, an integrated e-government service for expatriates in the Netherlands, suggests the core of governments' difficulty in creating user-centered services lies in a fundamental tension between the needs of users and those of governments. In this talk, Nalini Kotamraju — an Assistant Professor at the University of Twente in the Netherlands — explains how the purposes of e-government services can be met through a user-centered design approach, and how site builders can put the needs of users ahead of the ideas of governmental clients.

Through most of the talk, Kitamraju is focussed on government (remember: government is just a group of citizens) as a service provider. One of the points that she brought up during Q&A is that participatory democracy is relatively low on citizens' lists of e-government concerns. Granted she was doing her research in the Netherlands, but I would venture that much of it is relatable to the United States and other Western countries, at least most of the time. The popularity of democratic participation ebbs and flows in this country. Many people are looking for ways to use tech to help drive popular participation, and it will really be no small feat to do so. We're not in a situation where the masses are perpetually pounding at the doors of city hall.

At the same time, though, there are novel uses of modern social media and technology for driving engagement. At the Supernova forum this past week, I learned about ThinkUp, an app from Gina Trapani & Co. at Expert Labs. It provides an exceedingly simple way to poll for anecdotal answers to arbitrary questions using Twitter. It's not a government app per se, but certainly one that they could use. Perhaps it's not that citizens aren't interested in talking with the government. Perhaps citizens just feel that it's not worth the effort—government doesn't listen anyway. Perhaps if there were better, more engaging, less bureaucratic ways to communicate with government, people would be more interested in doing so.

In other words, maybe citizens' standards are just lower than what they should/could be. If there are no worthwhile communication channels with government, then no one expects there to be. However, if there were worthwhile channels, then people may raise a fit if you to take them away. This brings to mind Tim O'Rielly's conception of government as a platform (a good definition of a platform, via Scott Heiferman, is something that enables people to empower other people). For now, government is like an IBM/360; you can build on it (well, some people can), but it's cumbersome, expensive, and often over-centralized. When will we get to Django or Ruby on Rails? And what cultural shifts will be necessary?

But I digress.
Watch the video (in one of several formats) here.

(via Putting People First)

Philly Software for Citizens Brainstorming Meeting - Thoughts

So, before I forget what happened, over the next couple of days I have to record my thoughts on the brainstorming session that took place tonight at IndyHall.  I'd normally post this kind of stuff on a more personal blog, but this was, after all, a public meeting.  Forgive me if the thoughts are a little stream-of-consciousness.