Special Issue on Human Work Interaction Design for E-Government and Public Information Systems - Editorial

Abstract

In relation to designing the user experience for e-government systems, several paradoxical principles are faced which pull the design strategies in two opposing directions, for example, "control" versus "efficiency", "privacy" versus "transparency", "confidentiality" versus "right to know", "personalized" versus "designing for masses", "simple to understand" versus "informative", "feature richness" versus "ease of use" and "government centred" versus "citizen centred". None of these principles are actually contradictory, but an extra tilt towards any one of them can cause an undesirable user experience. Thus a fine balance is demanded with regards to strategy while designing the user experience for e-government systems and this can be achieved by means of suitable human work analysis and interaction design. Usability and user experience design is far more important for e-governance than for commercial websites, systems and products, as e-governance can impact upon the life of each and every citizen. Therefore, an attempt should be made to understand why human work interaction design is so critical to the development of e-government systems.