A utilização de Design Centrado no Usuário nos processos de desenvolvimento de software em instituições públicas brasileiras

Abstract

The use of Electronic Government (e-Government) systems has gained importance in expanding service provision and in promoting citizen participation. Nevertheless, it is argued that, for e-Government to be successful, a Citizen-Centered e-Government approach be employed, in which services and platforms are developed with the participation and focus on citizens. However, there is little knowledge about the use of User-Centered Design (UCD) techniques in the software development process that supports the e-Government structure in Brazilian public institutions. The objective in this work was to investigate the current overview of software development by means of multiple case study in four Brazilian public institutions, observing if the adopted development process followed the UCD guidelines and techniques. The results pointed out that, in general, the research institutions follow some UCD guidelines, such as: a) they have iterative development process; b) there is active involvement of the requesting bodies representatives throughout the process of e-Government development; c) at many points of the process occurs validations, some types of evaluations and feedbacks provided by these representatives on the various artifacts that represent the system. But, some of the main limitations of the identified institutions were: a) the lack of identification and involvement of the different groups of users, including design and evaluation, with limitations to these few representatives, usually linked to the sector demanding of this systems; and b) the lack of understanding about the use context and involvement of more diversified users’ groups, in particular those without direct link with the institutions, but attended by them. In addition, institutions lack evaluations in systems in production, that is, already in use. It is also necessary, during the system development, that institutions adopt usability practices, accessibility, user experience, interface patterns, guidelines and heuristic analysis. Failure to use these good practices maybe occurs due to the lack of a specialized team in design at these institutions. It is hoped that the results of this research can contribute by pointing out the shortcomings in the UCD implementation in Brazilian public institutions, sensitizing those institutions that develop systems, softwares, applications, websites and portals for citizens to use User-Centered Design techniques favoring effective implementation of Citizen-Centered e-Government.