Do-it-yourself services and work-like chores: on civic duties and digital public services

Abstract

Doing civic duties is neither paid work nor leisure: it is a private, work-like activity. Digital services enrol customers in doing work tasks. Also digital public services delegate work to citizens, but there are important differences between automation for citizens doing their civic duties and services that customers choose to use. In this paper, we discuss how digitally automated services remove some tasks but also introduce new work tasks for citizens and how citizens handle these. We present a study of citizens' calls to a public service provider (the tax authorities) requesting help carrying out their civic duties. The analysis of citizens' problems with doing their taxes is a basis for suggesting an alternative design of digital tax services that can increase citizens' mastery and autonomy when doing their taxes. We suggest an approach for designing coherent tasks for the citizen, and how doing one's civic duties can be seen as work-and as a part of life. We argue that designing for automated public services need to apply a citizen-centric perspective in order to maintain a basis for citizens to participate in democratic processes in society.

From Work to Life and Back Again: Examining the Digitally-Mediated Work/Life Practices of a Group of Knowledge Workers

“…In conclusion, this paper presents a rich picture of the practices of a cohort of men and women in knowledge-intensive roles as they develop and deploy strategies and boundaries for dealing with work and non-work. The paper contributes to CSCW in 2 ways: firstly some of our findings significantly add to those from previous research that they resonate with, via novel and nuanced empirical material, particularly about boundaries as resources (Bødker 2016), variability of individual strategies and their match to personal circumstances (Gray et al 2016), complex motivations underpinning one's strategies (De Carvalho et al 2017;Jarrahi and Sawyer 2017), and the labour-intensive nature of personal tasks (Verne and Bratteteig 2016). Secondly, we have presented novel findings that charter new territory for future CSCW research on the technological mediation of work/life practices that we summarise below.…”

“…These findings about blurring life into work particularly add to a body of research that has identified how digital technologies aid tasks that might not be part of paid employment, but are labour-intensive and require quasi-professional skills (such as healthcare management, accounting and taxes, etc., see for example Verne and Bratteteig 2016). Additionally, we have seen in our participants' cohort how work time and spaces can become pervaded by non-work aspects of life and therefore that they constantly make decisions about setting up or dissolving boundaries keeping life from spilling into work.…”

“…CSCW has long directed its attention to non-work spheres of life, including leisure, personal management/care and volunteering (Brown and Barkhuus, 2007;Verne and Bratteteig 2016;Voida et al 2015); CSCW and HCI have both examined the role of digital interactive technologies in mediating work/life tensions and boundaries, documenting the skilled use of digital tools, its collaborative aspects, and the assemblages of physical/digital resources in non-professional spheres such as volunteering and leisure as well as in professional domains (Korn and Voida 2015;Orlikowski 2007;Sengers 2011).…”

In Search for the Perfect Pathway: Supporting Knowledge Work of Welfare Workers

“…However, relatively few studies have examined the work of street-level bureaucrats in social service agencies. For examples, Borchorst and Bødker (2011) examine how citizens share information with governmental offices, and Breit and Salomon (2014) and Verne and Bratteteig (2016) examine the impact of digitalization on public service encounters. Borchorst et al, (2012) found out that the stronger the citizens' ability to perform identities that are compatible with the bureaucratic administrative process, the greater quality and swiftness the service.…”

“…A study of early computational systems in social security offices (Snellen and Wyatt, 1993), have argued that such systems increase focus on bureaucratization and public administration, and reduce focus on citizens. More recent studies of public services suggest the design of systems that move away from lean and rational case processing, applying a citizens-centric perspective (Verne and Bratteteig, 2016). and improving citizen involvement in the configuration of service provision (e.g., supporting transparent and accessible understanding of the case processes, and including the rationale behind particular decisions) (Borchorst and Bødker, 2011).…”