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Lookup NU author(s): Dr Colin WatsonORCiD, Adam Parnaby, Dr Ahmed KharrufaORCiD
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0).
There is a significant overlap between people who are supported by income-related social welfare benefits, often in precarious situations, and those who experience greater digital exclusion. We report on a study of claimants using the UK's Universal Credit online welfare benefit system designed as, and still, "digital by default". Through data collection involving remote interviews (n=11) and online surveys (n=66), we expose claimants' own lived experiences interacting with this system. The claimants explain how digital channels can contribute to an imbalance of power and agency, at a time when their own circumstances mean they have reduced abilities, resources and capacities, and where design choices can adversely affect people's utility to leverage help from their own wider socio-technical ecosystems. We contribute eight recommendations from these accounts to inform the future design and development of digital welfare benefit systems for this population, to reduce digital barriers and harms.
Author(s): Watson C, Parnaby AW, Kharrufa A
Publication type: Article
Publication status: Published
Journal: arXiv
Year: 2024
Online publication date: 14/05/2024
Acceptance date: 14/05/2024
Date deposited: 15/05/2024
Publisher: arXiv
URL: https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2405.08515
DOI: 10.48550/arXiv.2405.08515
ePrints DOI: 10.57711/3r4s-4g74
Data Access Statement: Data and materials created during this research are available at https://doi.org/10.25405/data.ncl.c.6746076 in Newcastle University’s data repository.
Notes: Pre-print (non-peer reviewed) paper distributed via arXiv.org under CC BY licence
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