Strategies for engaging communities in creating physical civic technologies

Nick Taylor, Loraine Clarke, Martin Skelly, Sara Nevay

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contribution

Abstract

Despite widespread interest in civic technologies, empowering neighbourhoods to take advantage of these technologies in their local area remains challenging. This paper presents findings from the Ardler Inventors project, which aimed to understand how neighbourhoods can be supported in performing roles normally carried out by researchers and designers. We describe the end-to-end process of bringing people together around technology, designing and prototyping ideas, and ultimately testing several devices in their local area. Through this work, we explore different strategies for infrastructuring local residents' participation with technology, including the use of hackathon-like intensive design events and pre-designed kits for assembly. We contribute findings relating to the ability of these strategies to support building communities around civic technology and the challenges that must be addressed.

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationProceedings of the 2018 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI '18)
PublisherACM
Number of pages12
ISBN (Electronic)9781450356213
ISBN (Print)9781450356206
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 20 Apr 2018
Event2018 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, CHI 2018 - Montreal, Canada
Duration: 21 Apr 201826 Apr 2018
https://chi2018.acm.org/

Conference

Conference2018 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, CHI 2018
Abbreviated titleCHI 2018
Country/TerritoryCanada
CityMontreal
Period21/04/1826/04/18
Internet address

Keywords

  • Civic technology
  • Co-design
  • Community
  • Digital civics
  • Grassroots innovation
  • Neighbourhood

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