Join us at Civic Design 2022, November 16-18

Designing for Digital Inclusion in the Belgian Government

Namahn has been working on digital inclusion for the Digital Transformation Office of the Belgian federal government for over a year. Since 2020, they have invested in understanding user needs to help administrations improve their services for and with the citizen. In a multidisciplinary team, the team researched the challenges of digital inclusion and explored actionable avenues for federal administrations. In 2019, a study showed that 42% of Belgian citizens didn’t use any online or digital public service. Applying design techniques, the team shaped a profound understanding of people at risk, their struggles, and how governmental services can become more inclusive. In this talk, Yalenka and Marie will outline how they conducted interviews with citizens at risk of digital exclusion during a lockdown and what they learned from those. Additionally, they’ll detail the current experiments that they are launching to ensure public services are conceived in an inclusive way.