The article presents the results of a series of sociological research on public services portals’ popularity among the residents of St. Petersburg, organized in 2014–2015. The research aim was oriented on obtaining reliable and timely data on the city residents’ availability and adaptation to the use of electronic state and municipal services. The authors present a research technique for determining the demand for e-government services among the population, as well as measuring the satisfaction with online services.
The research methodology was based on diffusion of innovations concept. The study was conducted using two types of questionnaires: online and offline. Overall, 285 respondents participate in the poll (unrepeated stratified sample, with 95.4% of reliability level).
The survey revealed a high demand for e-government and municipal services among the residents of St. Petersburg related to the daily use of the Internet and the need to apply for government services at least once a year. The study recorded the growing popularity of the federal and regional public services portals among the citizens, as well as a demand for multifunctional centers providing services. According to the sociological poll results, 36% of the respondents have already used the federal portal, and 24% were among the regional portal users. The study detected a high frequency of re-using the regional portal among those residents who used it once.
The study was carried out in groups of online services’ consumers, per E. Rogers adopter categories: innovators, early adopters, early majority, late majority, laggards.
Taking into account the indicators of a high-level satisfaction with the portal operation, the authors proposed a number of recommendations to increase the portal’s popularity among those groups of residents who currently have not been active in its usage or even have not been informed about such opportunities (the elderly and people close to the retirement age).