The paper presentation at the International Conference on e-Democracy and Open Government, Krems, Austria, may 2014. In Peter Parycek & Noella Edelmann (Eds.), CeDEM14: Proceedings of the International Conference for E-Democracy and Open Government (pp. 435-446). Krems: Edition Donau- Universität Krems

1. the strategic value of design for democracy
‘framing an issue’
bert mulder | associate professor information, technology and society

2. contents
design for (e-)democracy and (e-)governance
the issue
democracy, ICT and design
developments
challenges
research agenda

3. the issue
we find ourselves more and more involved in projects
designing solutions for democratic processes
online council meeting systems
citizen self governance
‘make the law’
‘follow the law’
‘follow the parliamentarian’

4. the issue
we find ourselves more and more involved in projects
designing solutions for democratic processes
online council meeting systems
citizen self governance
‘make the law’
‘follow the law’
‘follow the parliamentarian’

5. the issue
design more common for democracy and governance
1997: Schneider and Ingram: ‘Policy design for democracy’
1998: American Institute for Graphic Arts (AIGA) programme: ‘design for democracy’
2002: Andrew Reynold ‘The architecture of democracy: constitutional design, conflict management, and democracy’
2007: AIGA’s Design for democracy project does ballot and election design
2010: Andrew Reynold ‘Designing democracy in a dangerous world’
2014: Josh Lerner ‘Making democracy fun: how game design can empower citizens and transform politics’
2013: Centre for Civic Design subheading: ‘democracy is a design problem’

6. the issue
design seen as a preferable solution
‘…what works today is a more disciplined, systematic approach to solving public-sector
management problems—in short, government by design.
Government by design calls on public-sector leaders to favour the rational and the analytical
over the purely ideological, and to be willing to abandon tools and techniques that no longer
work.
Four principles are at its core:
the use of better evidence for decision making,
greater engagement and empowerment of citizens,
thoughtful investments in expertise and skill building,
and closer collaboration with the private and social sectors.
Each of these principles is central to creating more effective yet affordable government.’
(Farrell & Goodman, Government by design: four principles for a better public sector, 2013)

7. the issue
with ongoing development of the information society
we will see more and more digital solutions
for democracy and governance
‘designed’

8. democracy, ICT and design
democracy ICT
design

9. ICT
democracy ICT
design
developments
administrative / registrative ICT
web 1.0 presenting information
web 2.0 connecting people
the next decade
web 3.0 connecting knowledge
web 4.0 reasoning
internet of things
quantified self
big data
open (linked) data

10. democracy
democracy
ICT
design
developments
democracy ‘in crisis’
established / recent
western / eastern
northern / southern

11. design
democracy ICT
design
developments
material to immaterial
simple to complex
‘social innovation’
‘design thinking’
‘5 to 10% of designers are able to engage in social innovation’

12. democracy, ICT and design
ICTdemocracy
design
while a design approach to democracy and governance
becomes more prominent
each of the fields is in transformation:
what is the democracy you design for?
what is the design you design it with?
what is the ICT you implement?

13. democracy, ICT and design
ICTdemocracy
design
what is the democracy you design for?
what is the design you design it with?
what is the ICT you implement?
what should the quality of e-government solutions be?
what should the quality of the design process be?

14. challenges
elements of the design process
productsdesign
design viewdesign process
world viewworld

15. challenges
the plea for better design context
Systems thinking
Analysis is useful for revealing how a system works but synthesis
reveals why a system works the way it does…
(Pourdehnad, Wilson, & Wexler, 2011, p. 3
world world view
reductionism
(the belief that everything can be reduced to individual parts),
cause and effect
(environment free theory of explanation)
determinism
(fatalism)
analysis
(gain knowledge the system by understanding its parts)
expansionism
(the system can always be a sub-system of some larger system),
producer-product
(environment-full theory of explanation)
indeterminism
(probabilistic thinking)
synthesis
(explaining the role of the system in the larger system of which it is a part)

16. challenges
the plea for better design context
‘designers should be concerned at a higher level
and engage in four different conversations that are
interlocked through iteration and evaluation’ :
Conversation to agree on goals
Conversation to create new language
Conversation to design the designing
Conversation to agree on means
(paul pangaro)
world world view

17. design for democracy | research agenda
(e-)democracy and (e-)government:
moving from product to the process of design
reflection on the process of designing governance solutions means
reflecting on democracy and governance
from a functional design viewpoint
| political science | public administration | design theory | systems theory | IT architectures |

18. design for democracy | research agenda
a possible research agenda:
design frameworks and philosophies for (e-)democracy and (e-)governance
design methodologies
design methods
design criteria for products
design competencies for designers and project teams
…

19. the strategic value of design for democracy
‘framing an issue’
bert mulder | associate professor information, technology and society