Public services

A system map about digital inclusion - what is it really about? This video explains.

The “digital society” is a fact - no matter what you’re trying to get done, it is likely that you’ll need an app or another digital service to complete the task. It is easy to take for granted that all of these services just work for everyone – but they don’t.

There is extensive research and insight available that describes the problem of exclusion when it comes to digitalisation of public services, especially for seniors. This is one of many areas in the Norwegian government’s reform

 to make Norway a senior-friendly country.

 However, as the issue is complex and involves many stakeholders and actors, The Center for an Age-friendly Norway, saw a need to create a visual overview of the challenge to enable conversations and cross-sectoral action to solve it.

Creating an understandable and complete overview of digital exclusion

We compiled and visualized the information in a map in Miro, combined with illustrations created in Illustrator, making it easy to adjust and edit the map whenever necessary. The map is printable to make it easy to bring to meetings and use as a conversation tool. 

By applying service design methods, systems-oriented mapping and visualisations, we could unite different perspectives and create a holistic story that tells the story in a striking way. We gathered all existing information and structured it in a map, easy to edit and available in digital and physical (print) format. The 

 contains everything from research results and mapping of digital exclusion of vulnerable groups as well as stakeholders and actors and their roles in the challenge.

Ecosystem Mapping

The map is a tool to facilitate conversations about the issue with different stakeholders, and provide the participants with a shared vision of all the factors that need to be considered. We designed a power point deck to compile all of the information built into the map. Moreover, we created a personas tool to help the centre's collaborators evaluate their own services and products, and better understand how the barriers work for different people.

Let's have a look at the user journey; visualising how it might feel to experience digital vulnerability:

A visual system map

An important part of the map is the user experience visualising how it can feel if you struggle with digital services and tools. Without support and helpers, there’s a risk of feeling overwhelmed. In the map we have included a small “village” of helpers, representing actors that deliver courses and support in digital products for the elderly community.

We have included an overview of the biggest technology providers that exists today, a necessary tool to be able to use digital services. This illustration also shows a the complex infrastructure of software and components you need to use a digital services successfully. Using Bank-ID to log into a digital service, is considered a complex task due to the amount of components involved in the operation.

To make it easier to understand what it means to experience the five barriers, a persona tool was developed. It consists of five personas that show the experience of digital outsiderness, and make clear the diversity in both age and situations to which one may be exposed.

The information we needed to fully understand the complexity of digital vulnerability, was scattered in various research documents and governmental strategies. None of them gave the complete image, and they were all written documents with little visual content. In order to distill the core message, the team had to take all of the pieces of information apart, and experiment with how they work if put together in new compositions. To process the material the team created several iterations of the map, both with physical and digital tools.

The map was then brought out to different experts on the field, as well as workshops with the client. This way we got to test how the content would work in different compositions, and how the total impression of the material would be. When it comes to inclusion, language and representation of content is key, to be able to convey the information and avoid keeping up the different established prejudice about the user group.

Having a concrete and structured visualisation of the landscape involved in securing digital inclusion help different stakeholders have a dialogue around the challenge. It also facilitates a shared understanding of what canand needs to be done to solve it. The visual structure helps more people connect the dots of the complexity, making it easier to see solutions across the fields. Ultimately, digital inclusion is a matter of democracy and the rule of law.

The map functioned as a catalyst for the centre's work on digital inclusion. On 6 February 2024, they organized a conference on the theme "Together for digital inclusion" where our own Anders Kunz was a conference host and Norway's Minister of Digitalisation and Administration Karianne Tung gave the opening speech. The conference gathered stakeholders from all sectors involved in creating age friendly digital services.

An ecosystem map for inclusive digital services