research-article

Sens-Us: Designing Innovative Civic Technology for the Public Good

Authors:

Connie Golsteijn,

Sarah Gallacher,

Yvonne RogersAuthors Info & Claims

DIS '16: Proceedings of the 2016 ACM Conference on Designing Interactive Systems

Pages 39 - 49

https://doi.org/10.1145/2901790.2901877

Published: 04 June 2016 Publication History

Abstract

How can civic technology be designed to encourage more public engagement? What new methods of data collection and sharing can be used to engender a different relationship between citizens and the state? One approach has been to design physical systems that draw people in and which they can trust, leading them to give their views, opinions or other data. So far, they have been largely used to elicit feedback or votes for one or two questions about a given topic. Here, we describe a physical system, called Sens-Us, which was designed to ask a range of questions about personal and sensitive information, within the context of rethinking the UK Census. An in-the-wild study of its deployment in a city cultural center showed how a diversity of people approached, answered and compared the data that had been collected about themselves with others. We discuss the findings in relation to the pros and cons of using this kind of innovative technology when wanting to promote civic engagement or other forms of public engagement.

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Index Terms

Sens-Us: Designing Innovative Civic Technology for the Public Good
1. Human-centered computing

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Information & Contributors

Information

Published In

cover image ACM Conferences

DIS '16: Proceedings of the 2016 ACM Conference on Designing Interactive Systems

June 2016

1374 pages

ISBN:9781450340311

DOI:10.1145/2901790

General Chair:
Marcus Foth
Queensland University of Technology
,
Program Chairs:
Wendy Ju
Stanford University
,
Ronald Schroeter
Queensland University of Technology
,
Stephen Viller
University of Queensland

Copyright © 2016 ACM.

Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]

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Published: 04 June 2016

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DIS '16: Designing Interactive Systems Conference 2016

June 4 - 8, 2016

QLD, Brisbane, Australia

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DIS '16 Paper Acceptance Rate 107 of 418 submissions, 26%;

Overall Acceptance Rate 1,158 of 4,684 submissions, 25%

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Mauri AHsu YVerma HTocchetti ABrambilla MBozzon A(2024)Policy Sandboxing: Empathy As An Enabler Towards Inclusive Policy-MakingProceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction10.1145/36869088:CSCW2(1-42)Online publication date: 8-Nov-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3686908
Schmidt JRoy AKerkez B(2024)“You can’t write down the logic”: Bringing smart technology into the water infrastructure control roomProceedings of the 2024 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/3613904.3642467(1-13)Online publication date: 11-May-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3613904.3642467
Nishide SNishida T(2024)Using Word Games as Facilitator to Awareness Raising Communication in Public SpacesCollaboration Technologies and Social Computing10.1007/978-3-031-67998-8_15(212-219)Online publication date: 20-Aug-2024
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-67998-8_15
Wolff AKnutas A(2023)Tangible Data Exploration: Creating Card Games for Sensemaking2023 46th MIPRO ICT and Electronics Convention (MIPRO)10.23919/MIPRO57284.2023.10159800(50-55)Online publication date: 22-May-2023
https://doi.org/10.23919/MIPRO57284.2023.10159800
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Slingerland GLukosch SHengst MNevejan CBrazier F(2020)Together We Can Make It Work! Toward a Design Framework for Inclusive and Participatory City-Making of Playable CitiesFrontiers in Computer Science10.3389/fcomp.2020.6006542Online publication date: 21-Dec-2020
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Nijs GLaki GHoulstan RSlizewicz GLaureyssens TLamas DSarapuu HŠmorgun IBerget G(2020)Fostering More-than-Human Imaginaries: Introducing DIY Speculative Fabulation in Civic HCIProceedings of the 11th Nordic Conference on Human-Computer Interaction: Shaping Experiences, Shaping Society10.1145/3419249.3420147(1-12)Online publication date: 25-Oct-2020
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