Alenka Poplin

Playful public participation in urban planning: A case study for online serious games

The aim of this paper is to study the implementation of online games to encourage public participation in urban planning. Its theoretical foundations are based on previous work in public participatory geographical information systems (PP GISs), play and games, with a special focus on serious games. Serious games aim to support learning processes in a new, more playful way. We developed the concept of playful public participation in urban planning, including playful elements such as storytelling, walking and moving, sketching, drawing, and games. A group of students designed an online serious public participatory game entitled NextCampus. The case study used in NextCampus was taken from the real-world question of a possible move of a university campus to a new location in the city of Hamburg, Germany. The development of the serious public participatory game NextCampus resulted in a physical prototype, user interface design, and a computational model of the game. The NextCampus game was tested with the help of two groups of urban planning students and presented to three external experts who provided valuable recommendations for further development. The critical comments questioned the level of complexity involved in such games. The positive comments included recognition of the potential for joy and the playfulness a game like NextCampus could evoke.

Digital serious game for urban planning: “B3—Design your Marketplace!”

The main goal of this paper is to study the design and implementation of a digital serious game for civic engagement in urban planning. Digital serious games are games that aim to support learning in a playful and engaging way. Learning about the environment and planned changes is essential in civic engagement. The study case is taken from a city district, Billstedt, in Hamburg, Germany. In the implementation of a game concept we concentrated on the design of a marketplace in Billstedt. The game was called “B3—Design your Marketplace!” The B3 game aims to provide a playful digital environment in which the citizens gain information about the current situation in the city district, have the possibility of submitting their own designs for the marketplace, vote for the preferred designs, and chat with the experts and other participants. The prototype of the B3 serious game was evaluated with a group of students and a group of elderly people. The majority of the participants involved in testing expressed appreciation for the digital serious game as a new form of online civic engagement in urban planning. The paper concludes with a discussion about the potential of digital serious games for civic engagement and open research questions.

How user-friendly are online interactive maps? Survey based on experiments with heterogeneous users

Many users of online interactive maps have substantial problems interacting with these maps. The main goal of this paper is to explore the issues related to the interaction with GIS-based interactive online maps. An example is taken from a Public Participation Geographic Information System (PPGIS) created for the inhabitants in Wilhelmsburg, a city district of Hamburg, Germany. The application was developed within a European project and tested in two phases: first with the inhabitants of Wilhelmsburg and second with a group of students of urban planning with some basic GIS skills. In this article, we present the results of testing with both groups and discuss open research and practical issues related to the interaction with online interactive maps. We conclude the article with a list of relevant research topics which address this interaction and the consequences the design of online maps can have on the ability of the user to use them efficiently.

Games and serious games in urban planning: study cases

In this article we focus on online games and serious games in urban planning. At the beginning we provide some definitions of games and serious games and discuss the potential of serious games. We overview the urban planning games available online and give some examples of the game stories and concepts. The main goal of the article is to explore the potential of serious games in public participatory planning. To this end, a group of students at HafenCity University Hamburg designed and implemented a serious game. The game was entitled B3 Game and applied on the case of a market place in Billstedt, one of the city districts in Hamburg. The game enables the players to design their marketplace and discuss their suggestions with other citizens and urban planners. It aims at supporting playful public participation in urban planning. We conclude the paper with a discussion and further research directions.

The Gamification of Civic Participation: Two Experiments in Improving the Skills of Citizens to Reflect Collectively on Spatial Issues

Abstract For civic participation to lead to sustainable civic engagement, participants need to go through a process of collective reflection. Games have been put forward as tools to support this process. The commercialization of the Internet, mobile communication devices, and sensing technologies precipitated a substantial increase in the development and use of games, gamified environments, and playful experiences, to the extent that scholars speak of the gamification of society. The goal of this paper is to investigate the potential of gamification to improve the skills of citizens to reflect collectively on spatial issues in their daily environment. The paper presents two gamification experiments; B3-Design your Marketplace! and Cure for the Campus. It discusses the extent to which they support collective reflection operationalized as a process during which the players are triggered to (1) observe their environment; (2) categorize their observations; and (3) structure these categories. It analyzes the first results gained based on these two cases and discusses their limitations and further research directions.

The Participatory Cube: A Framework for Analysis of Online Participation Platforms

The main goal of this book chapter is to present a framework for analysis of online participation platforms. Recently, the whole range of various participation platforms emerged and there is a need for a model, which would enable to analyse their specific characteristics. The framework presented in this chapter, the participatory cube, is based on models proposed by Fung (2006) and Ferber et al. (2007). It consists of three axes: interactive communication, access to space of participation, and decision power. These categories play a major role in the analysis of the implemented study cases. The study cases were taken from Germany and Brazil. We concentrated on the selection of a variety of technologies that support civic engagement. The participatory cube served as the model for the comparison of the selected cases. We conclude the article with a discussion about the presented model and further research directions.

Evaluating the Current State of Geospatial Software as a Service Platforms: A Comparison Study

The goal of this chapter is to evaluate and compare Geospatial Software as a Service (GSaaS) platforms oriented toward providing basic mapping capabilities to non-GIS experts. These platforms allow users to organize spatial materials in layers, perform overlay and basic visual analysis, and share both final maps and the processes used to create them with remote collaborators. The authors gathered data on the characteristics of 15 platforms through an online survey, then summarized the results and created an Excel tool to enable users to sift through the data to identify platforms based on need. This study presents a snapshot of the current GSaaS landscape, summarizes current capabilities, points out weaknesses, and considers the potential of this class of application.

Spatial Game for Negotiations and Consensus Building in Urban Planning: YouPlaceIt!

Striving to reach consensus about the use of resources is crucial in spatial planning. Civic engagement and participatory planning support activities of negotiation and consensus building. Negotiation, as considered in this work, is a process of communication in which parties exchange their messages, opinions, or statements in order to influence the other party (Fisher 1991). In simple terms, negotiation is a discussion between two or more disputants who are trying to work out a solution to their problem. Many situations in urban and regional planning require negotiations and consensus building. Some examples may include questions like where to locate a new road; how to design the newly created park; and what is the best location for a new shopping mall. A negotiation can be interpersonal where several individuals negotiate, or inter-group in which groups negotiate among themselves. It can include different stakeholders: the residents of the planned area, various government departments, real-estate developers, industry, and non-governmental organizations (NGO’s). Reaching a consensus among different stakeholders is a challenging task which often needed to involve compromises among all involved parties. These negotiations take place because the stakeholders and individuals wish to create something new or resolve a problem or dispute. The problem usually arises when there are conflicting interests involved on how to use natural resources, land, buildings and/or how to revitalize and further develop cities and landscapes. One of the big challenges faced by planners that facilitate participatory planning and civic engagement represents the process of consensus building in which the parties can present their conflicting points of view with the goal of arriving at an agreement.

Online Survey of Heterogeneous Users and Their Usage of the Interactive Mapping Platform WorldMap

This article reports on the results of an online survey with 290 heterogeneous users of the interactive mapping platform WorldMap and provides insights into problems faced by such users. Heterogeneous users are users with a variety of GIS skills, educational background, gender, and age categories. We investigate how they interact with online maps and analyse their experience. WorldMap represents as a case study of an online mapping platform which aims to serve researchers and users across disciplines in viewing and creating online interactive maps. We concentrate on operations that are perceived as difficult and very difficult by the majority of users as well as operations that are rarely used. Our aim is to contribute to the discussions on how to improve the design of online GIS-based mapping platforms. We conclude the paper with reflections on the results of our study and ideas for further research.

Cartographies of Fuzziness: Mapping Places and Emotions

Mapping emotions and places is an emerging field in cartography. This article explores expressed emotions related to power places, which are defined as places at which people can recharge and relax. At these places they can find their balance and inner power. Our research is based on empirical experiments in Germany and the USA in which the participants self-identified and mapped their power places. They described them and selected expressions for emotions that best describe how they feel at these places. The main goal of this paper is to compare the results gained on two different continents. Using Russells Circumplex Model of Affect, we explore the cultural differences by mapping emotions in a two-dimensional circular place. We conclude the article with a discussion of the results and further research directions.