This paper explores timelines as a web-based tool for collaboration between citizens and municipal caseworkers. The paper takes its outset in a case study of planning and control of parental leave; a process that may involve surprisingly many actors. As part of the case study, a webbased timeline, CaseLine, was designed. This design crosses the boundaries between leisure and work, in ways that are different from what is often seen in current HCI. The timeline has several roles on these boundaries: It is a shared planning and visualization tool that may be used by parents and caseworkers alone or together, it serves as a contract and a sandbox, as a record and a plan, as inspiration for planning and an authoritative road, as a common information space and a fragmented exchange. Serving all these roles does not happen smoothly, and the paper discusses the challenges of such timeline interaction in, and beyond this case.

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This paper discusses the challenge of supporting digitally mediated citizengovernment collaboration in public service provision. With a vantage point in activity theory and the empirical data from three exploratory design cases, we derive a theoretical framework for understanding the way in which citizens share information with government. Through the proposed framework and the notion of Participatory Citizenship, we propose a set of central design challenges to supporting collaboration within this setting. We argue that civil servants and citizens have inherently different foci in the service provision process. Hence, we conclude that the focus of design should not be to support a shared motive for the overall service delivery, but to support a better common understanding of the case process in itself, i.e. the involved actors, their motives, and their mediating artifacts. Moreover, we argue that the aim of technological support for complex collaboration should not be leaner, more rational case processes, but improved citizen involvement in the configuration of service provision and the alignment of actor motives. Lastly, we exemplify how these design challenges can be met by discussing how a concrete exploratory prototype in the form of a web-based timeline addresses collaboration within a complex service provision setting.

This paper reports on an exploratory participatory design process aimed at supporting citizen deliberation in municipal planning. It presents the main outcomes of this process in terms of selected prototypes and an approach to the use setting. We support and discuss different ways for citizens to act and reflect on proposed plans: in-situ, while physically close to the planning object, and ex-situ, when citizens are remote from this. The support of in-situ and exsitu participation allows citizens to engage in continuous reflection-in and on-action as a collaborative activity with other citizens, hereby inspiring citizens to increase their democratic engagement.

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