Amplifying Quiet Voices: Challenges and Opportunities for Participatory Design at an Urban Scale

Many Smart City projects are beginning to consider the role of citizens. However, current methods for engaging urban populations in participatory design activities are somewhat limited. In this paper, we describe an approach taken to empower socially disadvantaged citizens, using a variety of both social and technological tools, in a smart city project. Through analysing the nature of citizens’ concerns and proposed solutions, we explore the benefits of our approach, arguing that engaging citizens can uncover hyper-local concerns that provide a foundation for finding solutions to address citizen concerns. By reflecting on our approach, we identify four key challenges to utilising participatory design at an urban scale; balancing scale with the personal, who has control of the process, who is participating and integrating citizen-led work with local authorities. By addressing these challenges, we will be able to truly engage citizens as collaborators in co-designing their city

Nature soundscapes: An audio augmented reality experience

© 2020 ACM. Augmented Reality (AR) has developed to be a popular and exciting technology domain, gaining notable public interest from 2009 to the present day. AR applications have traditionally focused upon paradigms that are visually led. In this paper, we document an Audio Augmented Reality (AAR) project, which considers soundscapes and how they might be transformed via the application of music and sound technologies. This work is concerned with the augmentation of nature soundscapes and explores how this may be used to enhance public understanding of the natural world. At present, we are concerned with the augmentation of spaces with biophony. Two examples of acoustic augmented reality are described: An initial pilot study to investigate the feasibility of the approach and an installation at the Timber International Forest Festival 2019. A technical description of each is provided alongside our own reflection and participant feedback, garnered from a soundwalk inspired approach to evaluation by audiences at the festival

The benefits and challenges of using crowdfunding to facilitate community-led projects in the context of digital civics

Digital technology is increasingly being used to bring citizens and communities together to address local concerns. While a variety of approaches have been developed that allow citizens and communities to improve their local communities, these approaches are often financially unsustainable. In this paper, we describe our exploration of crowdfunding as an alternative approach to funding and sustaining community-led projects in the context of digital civics. Through our analysis of four community-led crowdfunding projects, we explore the merits of crowdfunding in this context, demonstrating that it can a) provide an alternative funding mechanism suitable for financing some community-led projects, b) create a sense of empowerment and ownership, and c) increase community awareness. By reflecting on our experiences, we identify four key challenges to utilising crowdfunding to support community-led projects in the context digital civics. We also provide advice specific to crowdfunding in the context of digital civics, before discussing the role of crowdfunding within digital civics. By addressing these challenges, we will be able to better support community groups crowdfund for the public good