Uploaded on 2017-01-24 by HeikeLob

Think and comment on an existing Citizen Design Science project in urban design and planning from your area or country: In 2012 an initiative named “Designing Chicago” started a project to develop an App for the public transportation system based on the approach of “citizen design”. The objective was not only to create an App which meets the needs of a one-time user (e.g. as a tourist) or a daily user (commuter) of the Chicago Transportation System. The basic idea behind it was to ask for participation from the beginning on (research and observation phase, gathering information about experience of what the actual needs are, including emotional needs, not only functional needs), going through design phase (what should the App look like). By including a large crowd of people the project leaders tried to launch an App which would actually include citizen´s experience and emotions but also require active participation by suggestions about how the CTA (Chicago Transportation Authority) can be uses and planned better in order to increase satisfaction which finally increases livability. Originally the project was a combined crowd sourcing project calling for financial sources as well as active volunteers participating in the project. Based on what can be found on the project in 2017 it must be assumed that the project never went through the final design and launch phase. Still the project shows a good example of the opportunities to include citizens into a city design project as there was a very high level of participation and motivation of providing voluntarily the information even spending time on answering questions when volunteering to participate. One of the main objectives of this project was not so simply develop a new app but it was to develop a new process for designing and developing the App. The project didn´t mainly focus on the technology or the functionality but had a strong focus on the actual needs and preferences of the users (citizens). Aquite integrative approach which should be seen as a positive example rather a failure although the actual result of the project can´t be provided at this point. I assume that either the project was stopped due to financial issues or the CTA itself launched an App which included some of the “designing Chicago” project results.