Poster #19 - Making Digital Government Work: Barriers and Intermediary Roles in Service Access

• In Event: Friday Poster Reception

Abstract

As public services increasingly move online, digitalization is often expected to reduce administrative burden by making services more efficient, accessible, and scalable. Yet for many people seeking public benefits and other essential services, digital systems can reproduce existing barriers and create new ones. While a growing literature examines how digital service delivery can burden users, discussions of digital exclusion often default to a deficit framing that locates failure primarily in the skills, knowledge, or capacities of users. This paper shifts away from that lens by examining how barriers emerge from the interaction between users and the institutional arrangements of digital service delivery, and how intermediaries respond when those encounters break down. 

We study a county-wide digital navigation program in Florida operating between June 2025 and April 2026. In this program, trained digital navigators were embedded in community-based organizations serving vulnerable populations, including low-income residents, uninsured individuals, and people experiencing housing instability. We draw on qualitative data from more than 1,000 navigator support tickets documenting one-on-one client interactions, along with end-of-program survey responses reflecting on navigators’ experiences. Together, these data capture both the sources of breakdown in digital service access and the forms of assistance used to resolve them. 

Using qualitative content analysis, we develop a framework that identifies four origins of barriers in digitally mediated service access: institutional blockage, where malfunctioning, rigid, or inaccessible systems prevent progress; institutional complexity, where burdens arise from procedural opacity, verification demands, and difficult interfaces; direct client-side barriers, such as limited digital skills or credential management difficulties at the point of interaction; and structurally shaped client barriers, including language, disability, limited resources, and other constraints produced by broader social conditions. By distinguishing institutional from client-side sources of burden, we move beyond a deficit-only account of digital exclusion. 

We also identify four distinct intermediary roles through which these burdens are absorbed or mediated: substitution, in which navigators complete tasks for clients; workaround, in which they circumvent broken or inflexible systems; translation, in which they interpret complex procedures, eligibility rules, and bureaucratic language; and capacity building, in which they teach skills and support future independence. These roles vary systematically with the origin of the barrier and whether the response compensates for failure or builds clients’ future ability to navigate services. 

By linking barrier origins to intermediary roles, this paper offers a new way to understand how access is accomplished in digitized policy environments. The findings highlight the hidden human infrastructure required to make digital government function and suggest that equitable digital access requires not only helping users adapt, but also redesigning systems and properly resourcing frontline support.

Authors

• Lingwei Cheng, University of Central Florida
  Presenting Author

• Kyungmin Lee
  Non-Presenting Co-Author

• Andrew Alfred Sullivan, University of Central Florida
  Non-Presenting Co-Author

• Xi Huang, University of Central Florida
  Non-Presenting Co-Author