Participatory methods

SHOWCASE DEMOLA

TITLE: IMPROVING E-SERVICES IN THE CITY OF MARIBOR

1. SHORT DESCRIPTION of the PILOT PROBLEM/CHALLENGE

Wide selection of e-services is available to the citizens of Maribor by public-service providers (utilities, public transport, libraries…), but their big number and dispersion in cyber space provides a challenge for potential users.

The project team of the Municipality of Maribor and eZavod organized a stakeholder group of all relevant e-service providers to improve e-services and provide better navigation system focused on the end-user – citizen. The objective was to substantially increase the usage of e-services among citizens. The DEMOLA approach was only a part of wider co-creation process organized as a Living Lab. Population of students was defined as one of key target groups and invited to join the co-creation process with a view to improve e-services.

The DEMOLA approach was used as it is simple and proven method for designing innovative solutions with student population.

The application of the method provided:

  • Real-life testing of e-services by population that is using e-services on daily basis
  • Co-design of solutions with e-service providers and their developers
  • Joint findings and recommendations for the improvement of e-services.


DEMOLA Process of co-creation:

  • Preparatory workshop with students
  • Field-work by students – testing e-services in real-case scenario
  • Polls done by students with their school-mates
  • Joint workshop with students and e-service providers-developers
  • Pitching final findings and recommendations


2. STARTING INTERACTION AND ICT TOOLS USED

Please describe your pilot starting interaction activities, how did you motivate stakeholders to get involved into pilot project implementation and which communication ICT tools (social media and sharing platforms) you used (Text up to 1.000 characters)

Initially, the project team identified the CONNECTOR at the University of Maribor – a professor at the Faculty for Civil Engineering who was in charge of DEMOLA at the university for years hence having wide network of stakeholders. Initial meeting was organized with him at the Municipality to present the challenge. He activated the group of students from the architecture & spatial planning field to become the “core team” of the process. The core team activated other students through personal relations (the “snow-ball” effect)

Students were equipped with a list of e-services to be tested and access codes. The communication channel was e-mail and phone, activation through social media wouldn’t make sense in this case.

 

3. IMPLEMENTATION OF THE PARTICIPATORY METHOD

At the beginning, we held a workshop with public e-service providers from Maribor, which brought together 9 institutions (utilities, public transport provider, library…) where main challenges were defined – low usage of e-services among citizens, big number of e-services available with no single-entry point.

A “core team” of 3 students was activated and invited for learning session where challenge and methodology was presented. Core team activated additional 20 students to participate in the process, which was implemented through following steps:

  1. Initial workshop with the student core-team where instructions were handed to them and common understanding of the problem achieved. Mentor was nominated by the project team to support the students throughout the process
  2. Field-work – core team were given 2 months to test the apps and other e-services and prepare comprehensive user feed-back
  3. Core team activated additional 20 students to provide user-experience in simplified way – interviews
  4. Joint workshop with e-service providers – joint workshop (3 hrs) with providers and developers of e-services was organized as co-creation process.
  5. Final pitch – final pitch was given by the student core-team to e-service providers in form of practical recommendations on how to improve the e-services. Paper version of recommendations was provided by the student core-team.
  6. Financial reward was given to the students by the project team.


4. PILOT PROJECT OUTCOMES/RESULTS

NEW SERVICE FOR CITIZENS OF MARIBOR DEVELOPED

With the implementation of participatory process through Living Lab & DEMOLA approach, a new service – SINGLE-ENTRY POINT was developed for the citizens of Maribor – with the citizens of Maribor. The co-creation process applied brought solution that will improve the use of public e-services. The new solution provides simplified access to public e-services and easier navigation. Some e-services will be modified (when companies will update them according to their internal plans) based on the findings produced in co-creation process.