Evaluation methods for citizen design science studies: How do planners and citizens obtain relevant information from map-based e-participation tools?

Abstract

A successful e-participation campaign in urban planning relies on good two-way communication between the expert and the citizen. While the presentation of information from planners to citizens is one concern of that topic, we address in this paper the question of how citizens’ inputs can be evaluated for map-based e-participation tools. The interest is, on the one side, in the usefulness of the input for the planner and, on the other side, in performing a quick assessment which can provide feedback to the participant via the tool’s interface. We use a test dataset that was acquired with an online city planning tool that uses 3D geometries and develop analysis methods from it that can also be generalized for other map-based e-participation tools. These analysis methods are meant to be applied to large datasets and to enhance e-participation methods in urban planning and design to citizen (design) science approaches. The methods range from the calculation of simple parameters and heatmaps over clustering to point pattern analysis. We evaluate the presented approaches by their computation time and their usefulness for the planner and non-expert citizen and investigate their potential to serve as a composite analysis. We found that functions of the point pattern analysis reveal relevant information of the users’ inputs but require a simplified presentation. We introduce a spatial dispersion index as an example to present the relations between objects in a clear way.