Sarah-Kristin Thiel

Potentials and challenges of a living lab approach in research on mobile participation

This paper discusses potentials and challenges of living lab approach in studying pervasive mobile participation, including reporting experiences of a living lab experiment currently conducted in Turku, Finland. It shows that the living lab approach offers both new opportunities and challenges when implemented in the urban governance context. In general, living labs hold great potential for researching participatory processes enabled by state-of-the-art technology in real world contexts. However, conducting experiments in those real life contexts presents a number of inherent difficulties that makes the potential essentially vulnerable, such as usability issues and political ambivalence on change.

Reward-based vs. Social Gamification: Exploring Effectiveness of Gamefulness in Public Participation

In the last decades, there has been a plethora of research on how to foster public participation. Recently, academia started to experiment with gamification aiming to design participation platforms more engaging as well as attract more citizens. In this paper we analyze the effects of game-inspired elements when applied in public participation applications. In particular, we focus on two types of gamification, namely reward-based gamification and social gamification. Our results suggests that while not everyone perceives gamifying participation as appropriate, social gamification has a greater potential of motivating citizens to become engaged. At the same time, we found no indications that gamification decreases the quality of participation.

Motivations to Use a Mobile Participation Application

This paper reports results on presumably the first city-wide mobile participation trial (Living Lab) examining citizen participation in urban planning, conducted in Turku, Finland, in 2015. The questions examined are the socio-economic characteristics of the application users, as well as their motivations to participate. The inclusion of online participation has been discussed widely in literature on e-participation and the digital divide, arguing for a great influence of socio-economic factors, interest in the topic, and users’ online skills. The results reveal that this application, too, was used predominantly by young adults and middle-aged, highly educated, and technology savvy citizens, who were already interested in urban planning. Their use of the application was motivated primarily by the opportunity to bring their own ideas and issues to the city authorities’ attention, rather than participating in missions given by the municipality or discussing planning issues with fellow citizens, indicating a rather individualistic usage interest. The location-based features and ease of use of a mobile application were valued highly. Those who idled reported predominantly technical challenges with the app.

Gamification as Motivation to Engage in Location-Based Public Participation?

In the last decade there have been various attempts to foster location-based public participation. Researchers as well as municipalities have explored several methods, among them the implementation of digital participation tools. However, the actual level of participation has remained low. This gives cause to both analyze the reasons for the ineffectiveness of the explored methods as well as to “think outside the box” and try novel approaches. One of such approaches is gamification. This research investigates the effects adding game-inspired elements can have on participation. In particular, we focus on how motivational factors differ for gamified participation and whether motivations influence citizens’ level of engagement. To do so, we conducted an experiment with a location-based mobile participation prototype. Our results suggest that participation in a gamified application was higher than in one without, but also decreased intrinsic motivation, which was found to influence activity in location-based public participation. The strongest reported motivation was reporting issues regarding urban topics and stating one’s opinion.

3rd International Workshop on Pervasive Participation

The proposed workshop aims to develop the concept of Pervasive Participation further by reviewing current forms of advanced e-participation that utilize latest pervasive technologies such as feature-rich smartphones and technically enriched appliances embedded in urban environments and brainstorming ideas for effectively leveraging of in-situ participation as well as the combination of mobile and stationary forms of participation. Drawing on the expertise of an interdisciplinary group of participants, the objective of the workshop is to both raise awareness for the increasingly relevant topic of technology-enabled forms of public participation as well as jointly develop requirements and prototype concepts for innovative strategies that engage a broader range of citizens, thus also encouraging less motivated people. The outcome is envisioned as a list of requirements for Pervasive Participation that combine mobile and stationary engagement methods in an engaging way.

Play It to Plan It? The Impact of Game Elements on Usage of a Urban Planning App

Public participation experts and scholars alike are experimenting with gamification in their quest to motivate citizens to participate in urban planning . This chapter investigates the impact specific game elements can have on citizens’ motivation in a mobile participation application. We present findings from a long-term field study with a gamified mobile participation prototype where we explored participants’ awareness, acceptance, and experiences of using gaming elements in the application. Our results indicate that the effects of gamified participation are limited as it seems to only be an effective strategy to increase participation for those who are affine to games. For others, the majority who is usually already intrinsically motivated, gamification has little to offer. Yet, when gaming elements offer added value to their engagement, our participants approved of these elements. This work contributes to both gamification as well as to the burgeoning field of mobile participation in urban planning by providing insights about the effect of specific game elements and recommendations for the use of gamification in urban planning applications.

Nutzerorientierte Gestaltung von interaktiver E-Partizipation

In den letzten Jahren wurde die Literatur rund um Burgerbeteiligung von der Aussage dominiert, die Besorgnis erregend hohe Nichtbeteiligung an offentlichen Vorgangen und Entscheidungen lage einerseits an den Zugangsbeschrankungen traditioneller Beteiligungsprozesse und anderseits am generellen Nichtinteresse von BurgerInnen an Politik. Um dem entgegenzuwirken, wurden digitale (meist webbasierte) Beteiligungsplattformen geschaffen. Bisherige Erfahrungen mit herkommlichen webbasierten Plattformen zeigen aber in der Regel, dass sie noch nicht genugend Aktivitat unter BurgerInnen stimulieren, um masgeblichen Einfluss auf Politik und politische Prozesse nehmen zu konnen. Daher wird nun versucht, neue Wege in Sachen digitaler Burgerbeteiligung zu gehen sowie auch neuartige Medien und Informations- und Kommunikationstechnologien (IKT) und Konzepte (wie z. B. offene Daten) zu nutzen. Um den Trend aufzugreifen, dass immer mehr Menschen sich in sozialen Netzwerken politisch engagieren und ihre Meinung ausern, wird nun versucht, Eigenschaften von diesen Medien auf Burgerbeteiligungsplattformen zu ubertragen. Dieses Kapitel gibt einen Uberblick uber aktuelle Ansatze IKT-Losungen sowie unterschiedliche Medien und Gerate zur Forderung der Burgerbeteiligung einzusetzen. Diese Ansatze werden kritisch im Hinblick auf eine Reihe bekannter Herausforderungen digitaler Burgerbeteiligung beleuchtet. Darauf aufbauend erfolgt ein Uberblick uber Ansatze, die bisherige Schwachpunkte digitaler Burgerbeteiligung zu adressieren versprechen (z. B. persuasive Strategien und automatisches Feedback).

“Thanks for Your Input. We Will Get Back to You Shortly.” How to Design Automated Feedback in Location-Based Citizen Participation Systems

Location-based citizen participation systems have so far mostly been characterized by mediated human-to-human communication between citizens, authorities and other stakeholders. However, in the near future we will see more automatized feedback elements, which inform citizens about the expectable financial or legal implications of their requests. We conducted an experiment to provide research-driven guidance for interaction design in this application context. Thirty participants submitted tree planting proposals with an experimental prototype that varied along the dimensions immediacy, implicitness, and precision. They rated the different forms of provided automatic feedback with regard to satisfaction, and they ranked them in a subsequent card sorting trial. The results show that users have considerably high expectations towards the immediacy and precision of automated feedback, regardless of the inherently higher responsiveness compared to human-operated participation systems. With regard to interaction design, results indicate that the automatically processed information should be made available as early and as possible to users.

Balancing Potential and Risk : The Living Lab Approach in Mobile Participation Research

Living labs as a research approach have been said to hold many promises regarding the evaluation of state-of-the art technologies in real-world contexts, for instance by allowing close cooperation with various stakeholders. At the same time, a living lab approach is connected with substantial complexity and increased risk. This paper elaborates on a conducted living lab with the objective to explore challenges and opportunities of mobile participation. For this purpose, a novel mobile application enabling interaction between citizens and city authorities was tested over a period of five months in Turku, Finland. In this paper, we describe identified risks associated with a living lab approach to mobile participation research. We conclude with an overall evaluation regarding the appropriateness of the living lab approach within the e-participation research field and provide recommendations on how to balance potential and risk in future projects.

Gamers in public participation: a boon or bane? influence of attitudes in gamified participation platforms

Despite many and diverse efforts to re-encourage citizens to participate in public life and decision-making, the level of participation has yet remained low. Practitioners and scholars are now drawing on out-of-the-box solutions, with gamification being one approach. Assuming that incorporating game elements into digital public participation platforms does indeed have an effect on the level of participation, we explore whether only the quantity or also the quality are affected and in what ways. This paper lays a foundation for this by investigating the influence of different attitudes on these two aspects of participation. Our results suggest that attitudes can indeed influence both aspects. Affinity towards games can for instance encourage people to engage with gamified participation platforms, but this motivational boost usually does not last for long and might not always be beneficial in terms of input quality. Intrinsic interest in urban planning on the other hand positively influences both the quantity and quality of engagement. Thus gamified participation could be useful for onboarding, however other methods need to be found to maintain involvement over time.