'Demand driven development of public e-services': Dominant, hidden and contrasting stories

Abstract

The idea of participation and demand driven development is not unique for the applied area of development of public e-services, it has for long been an issue in development stands and has moved relatively unchecked from the margins to the mainstream of development since mid 1980s. The promise of empowerment and transformative development has though been severely questioned during the past decade in development research and practice in lack of sufficient evidence that the idea is living up to the expected standards. However, in eGovernment, demand driven development of public e-service is on the contrary growing. Expectations such as enhanced use, better services and more efficient resource utilization are expressed in different contexts. In this article the idea of demand driven development of public e-services is analyzed discursively in order to gain a deeper understanding of how the narrative is told, retold and challenged. The results show that from a design perspective it is rewarding to acknowledge both the dominant, hidden and contrasting stories in order to understand challenges in development work. © 2012 IFIP International Federation for Information Processing.