Modeling and illustrating requirement prioritization in public e-service development from a value-based perspective

A major problem in e-service development is the prioritization of the requirements of different stakeholders. The main stakeholders are governments and their citizens, all of whom have different and sometimes conflicting requirements. In this paper, the prioritization problem is addressed by combining a value-based approach with an illustration technique. This paper examines the following research question: How can multiple stakeholder requirements be illustrated from a value-based perspective in order to be prioritizable? We used an e-service development case taken from a Swedish municipality to elaborate on our approach. Our contributions are: 1) a model of the relevant domains for requirement prioritization for government, citizens, technology, finances and laws and regulations; and 2) a requirement fulfillment analysis tool (RFA) that consists of a requirement-goal-value matrix (RGV), and a calculation and illustration module (CIM). The model reduces cognitive load, helps developers to focus on value fulfillment in e-service development and supports them in the formulation of requirements. It also offers an input to public policy makers, should they aim to target values in the design of e-services.

Using structured observation and content analysis to explore the presence of older people in public fora in developing countries

There is a lack of research on the everyday lives of older people in developing countries. This exploratory study used structured observation and content analysis to examine the presence of older people in public fora, and considered the methods’ potential for understanding older people’s social integration and inclusion. Structured observation occurred of public social spaces in six cities each located in a different developing country, and in one city in the United Kingdom, together with content analysis of the presence of people in newspaper pictures and on television in the selected countries. Results indicated that across all fieldwork sites and data sources, there was a low presence of older people, with women considerably less present than men in developing countries. There was variation across fieldwork sites in older people’s presence by place and time of day, and in their accompanied status. The presence of older people in images drawn from newspapers was associated with the news/non-news nature of the source. The utility of the study’s methodological approach is considered, as is the degree to which the presence of older people in public fora might relate to social integration and inclusion in different cultural contexts.