Feature: Giving a Voice to the Hard to Hear

The following is a second brief extract from "Informing Digital Futures: Strategies for Citizen Engagement" by Leela Damodaran and Wendy Olphert. This one looks at those who don't get heard and how to include them. The book was published by Springer in late October 2006. (The extract has been slightly edited to appear here.)


The need to engage with all citizens in order to design ICTs which can be used successfully by the general public has been emphasised repeatedly. Many of those at risk of exclusion may for a variety of different reasons, be ‘hard to hear’ by planners, policy makers and designers. These groups include, for example, the elderly, the disabled, young people, ethnic minorities, those on low incomes, the homeless or itinerant groups. Many governments have stated their concerns and objectives to extend the benefits of ICT to all citizens, including those regarded as coming from such marginalised groups. Certainly in the UK, the ‘hard to reach’ or the ‘hard to hear’ are attracting increasing attention, in fact rather more than other citizens. The Digital Inclusion Panel was set up by UK Government in 2004, bringing together stakeholders from the public, private and voluntary sectors. The aim was to identify groups most at risk of digital exclusion, identify future actions that might encourage digital take-up, and to make recommendations about how industry, government and the voluntary sector can work together to drive a ‘digitally United Kingdom’. There have been many other initiatives supported by other government departments in the UK such as the Home Computing Initiative (HCI), which encourages employers to loan PCs for home/flexible working. A number of community-led initiatives (e.g. Access to Broadband Campaign, Community Broadband Network) also address social exclusion issues, including geographic isolation. There are thought to be around 400 such community projects with varying degrees of sophistication and impact.

Internationally a vast number of initiatives, projects and programmes of varying size, scale and scope are addressing similar issues. Although substantial resources and efforts are being invested in promoting social inclusion, documentation of the processes involved, the approaches and methods used and their effectiveness in increasing levels of inclusion is in short supply. This is intended to inform the proliferating projects and programmes which have a mission to engage with the ‘hard to hear’.

Assuming that the powerful drivers that now exist for technological change will continue to exert an inexorable influence for greater citizen engagement, the challenge of determining who to engage and how to engage them looms large.

We begin by outlining the special characteristics of the ‘hard to hear’ which are relevant to their engagement. Examples of some ground-breaking projects and initiatives which have been used to engage successfully with such groups will then be described and discussed.

Why are some Citizens ‘Hard to Hear’?
There are two main reasons which can prevent some citizens from engagement. The first is that they have simply not been identified as being legitimate stakeholders in a particular initiative. As a consequence, designers, developers and policy makers have not made efforts to communicate with them and involve them in decision making. The second is that the citizens themselves may lack (or perceive that they lack) the motivation, confidence or resources – whether time, knowledge or skills - needed in order to engage in an initiative.

Identification of those citizens who are at risk from exclusion for either of these reasons is therefore a crucial first step in seeking to engage them.

There is an old adage which says “what the eye doesn’t see, the heart doesn’t grieve over.” In other words, if you are not aware of something, then you are not going to concern yourself with it. In the first instance to give citizens a voice therefore, government, business, as well as ICT de-velopers and designers must “see them”, and recognise the diversity that exists. It can be difficult to recognise just how many different kinds of citizens there are. There is certainly evidence that designers tend to design for people like themselves – small wonder, therefore, that many of the hi-tech gadgets which are on the market appeal so strongly to the young, the affluent, the male. Don Norman points out that designers, who, in practice are often engineers or managers, “tend to feel that they are humans, therefore they can design something for other humans just as well as the trained interface expert.” Alan Cooper puts it in a typically succinct way: “programmers aren’t evil. They work hard to make their software easy to use. Unfortunately, their frame of reference is themselves, so they only make it easy to use for other software engineers, not for normal human beings.” Norman reinforces the point that designers are not typical users. “They become so expert in using the object they have designed that they cannot believe that anyone else might have problems; only interaction and testing with actual users throughout the design process can forestall that”. Of course, it is not just designers who have difficulty appreciating the extent of diversity in society – most of us share that characteristic – including key role-holders in government agencies, local authorities etc.

Certain groups of stakeholders become excluded from adequate provision in terms of systems, services and products. This is because they have not been identified as a group with specific characteristics which may need special consideration. This may arise as a result of over-generalisation, e.g. there is recognition in many circles of the need to design for ‘the elderly’, or ‘the disabled’ and yet people in these categories will have a hugely diverse range of characteristics. For example, two important differentiators regarding adoption of the Internet by older people appear, from recent research to be income and social support.

Clearly those who are well-off will not necessarily face the same problems as those who are poor; similarly those who are part of a strong social support network of family and friends will not necessarily face the same problems as those who are isolated.

Another adage says “there are none so deaf as those who do not want to hear”. This can mean that although some categories of citizens have a legitimate ‘stake’ in a proposed development – and therefore a right to be heard – they may sometimes be ignored by other leading and influential stakeholders who fear delays, loss of power or control, or increased costs through having to engage with others.

Further there are people who choose on a regular basis to engage in consultations and other participative exercises but they may not be representative of the wider community.

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