Description (short summary):
The European Commission Directorate-General Information Society and Media study on the measurement of user satisfaction and impact has developed a multilayer user-satisfaction and impact measurement toolkit aimed at providing both policy makers and public agencies with the necessary information and tools for the analysis of public sector service provision. This standardised survey framework provides a hands-on approach to a set of customszable survey tools. Its methodology offers a rich and solid foundation for analysis based on state-of-the-art experiences accumulated both on the EU and international levels.

The measurement toolkit was piloted in September 2008 in ten different Member States and the results were used to fine-tune the measurement instrument and to develop a first policy recommendation aimed at fostering inclusive eGovernment.

The survey results clearly indicate a number of crucial issues that have been brought to light with this study. Among these are a number of notions that relate to trust-building. Others relate to the kinds of benefits that governments aim to achieve through eGovernment and, indeed, do appear to be achieving. Yet others relate to what government service providers need to know better about their clients and customers while consciously needing to enhance the privacy of those citizens.

From this analysis, the authors can conclude that Europe has adopted the appropriate eGovernment strategy by stimulating the supply of highly interactive transactional public eServices in domains of high demand and high interest. There seems to be evidence that eGovernment take-up follows supply. Nevertheless an imbalance between supply and take-up remains an important challenge for different public sector services.

It is clear from the results of this study that balanced efforts concerning the development of more highly sophisticated public eServices as well as trust- and awareness-creating actions are necessary. The road towards actual user-centric public services requires a more extensive form of user profiling that provides measurements of the essential dimensions of use, satisfaction and impact. Using the standardised framework developed under this study makes available the tools and methodology to do so. It enables policy makers and public agencies to develop and monitor trusted, innovative eGovernment services in an inclusive and continuous manner.

Based on the results of the pilot survey, the survey instrument was evaluated, re-adapted and further developed into a set of re-usable tools. For the two target groups of citizens and businesses, two survey tools are presented. They are:

• a "User Satisfaction Benchmark" designed for a general level demand-side monitoring of user satisfaction and impact across European countries;
• an "eService Evaluation tool" that public agencies may use to measure user satisfaction and impact of the specific services they provide electronically.

Number of pages:
Full report: 366
Management Summary: 7