Skip to main content
Springer Nature Link
Log in

Idea Browsing on Digital Participation Platforms: A Mixed-Methods Requirements Study

  • Conference paper
  • First Online:
Research Challenges in Information Science: Information Science and the Connected World (RCIS 2023)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Business Information Processing ((LNBIP,volume 476))

Included in the following conference series:

  • 938 Accesses

Abstract

Digital participation platforms (DPP) are websites initiated by local governments through which citizens can post and react to ideas for their city. In practice, the majority of DPP users browse the posted ideas without contributing any. This activity, referred to as lurking, has widely recognized positive outcomes, especially in a citizen participation context. However, it has been devoted little attention. In practice, the idea browsing features available on current DPP are limited, and the literature has not evaluated the available approaches nor studied the requirements for idea browsing. In this paper, we report on an evaluation of the filterable list, which is the most common idea browsing approach on DPP. Our findings show that it lacks stimulation hedonic quality and call for a more stimulating approach. Thus, we conducted 11 semi-structured interviews to collect requirements and found that idea browsing on DPP should be supported by the combination of (1) a stimulating interactive representation such as circle packing or thematic trees displayed as entry point and (2) a filterable list for deeper exploration. This article is the first to study requirements for idea browsing features on DPP.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution

Subscribe and save

Springer+ Basic
$34.99 /Month
  • Get 10 units per month
  • Download Article/Chapter or eBook
  • 1 Unit = 1 Article or 1 Chapter
  • Cancel anytime
Subscribe now

Buy Now

Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

Notes

  1. 1.

    https://publicadministration.un.org/en/Research/UN-e-Government-Surveys.

  2. 2.

    https://www.betrireykjavik.is/group/3740.

  3. 3.

    https://mons.citizenlab.co/fr-BE/projects/participez-ici/3.

  4. 4.

    https://www.citizenlab.co/blog/civic-tech/4-reasons-why-digital-participation-is-easier-than-you-think-2/.

References

  1. Aristeidou, M., Scanlon, E., Sharples, M.: Profiles of engagement in online communities of citizen science participation. Comput. Hum. Behav. 74, 246–256 (2017)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  2. Arnold, N., Paulus, T.: Using a social networking site for experiential learning: appropriating, lurking, modeling and community building. Internet High. Educ. 13(4), 188–196 (2010)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  3. Arnstein, S.: A ladder of citizen participation. J. Am. Inst. Plann. 35(4), 216–224 (1969)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  4. Berntzen, L., Johannessen, M.R.: The role of citizen participation in municipal smart city projects: lessons learned from Norway. In: Gil-Garcia, J.R., Pardo, T.A., Nam, T. (eds.) Smarter as the New Urban Agenda. PAIT, vol. 11, pp. 299–314. Springer, Cham (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-17620-8_16

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  5. Bishop, J.: Increasing participation in online communities: a framework for human-computer interaction. Comput. Hum. Behav. 23(4), 1881–1893 (2007)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  6. Brandtzæg, P.B.: Towards a unified media-user typology (MUT): a meta-analysis and review of the research literature on media-user typologies. Comput. Hum. Behav. 26(5), 940–956 (2010)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  7. Callahan, K.: Citizen participation: models and methods. Int. J. Public Adm. 30(11), 1179–1196 (2007)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  8. Clarinval, A., Simonofski, A., Vanderose, B., Dumas, B.: Public displays and citizen participation: a systematic literature review and research agenda. Transform. Gov. People Process Policy 15(1), 1–35 (2021)

    Google Scholar 

  9. Creswell, J.W., Clark, V.L.P.: Designing and Conducting Mixed Methods Research. Sage, London (2017)

    Google Scholar 

  10. Cugurullo, F.: How to build a sandcastle: an analysis of the genesis and development of Masdar City. J. Urban Technol. 20(1), 23–37 (2013)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  11. Edelmann, N.: Reviewing the definitions of “lurkers” and some implications for online research. Cyberpsychol. Behav. Soc. Netw. 16(9), 645–649 (2013)

    Google Scholar 

  12. Edelmann, N., Parycek, P., Schossbock, J.: The unibrennt movement: a successful case of mobilising lurkers in a public sphere. Int. J. Electron. Gov. 4(1–2), 43–68 (2011)

    Google Scholar 

  13. Faridani, S., Bitton, E., Ryokai, K., Goldberg, K.: Opinion space: a scalable tool for browsing online comments. In: Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, pp. 1175–1184. Association for Computing Machinery (2010)

    Google Scholar 

  14. Farina, C.R., Epstein, D., Heidt, J.B., Newhart, M.J.: Regulation room: getting “more, better” civic participation in complex government policymaking. Transform. Gov. People Process Policy 7(4), 501–516 (2013)

    Google Scholar 

  15. Fung, A.: Varieties of participation in complex governance. Public Adm. Rev. 66, 66–75 (2006)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  16. Goncalves, J., Hosio, S., Liu, Y., Kostakos, V.: Eliciting situated feedback: a comparison of paper, web forms and public displays. Displays 35(1), 27–37 (2014)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  17. Gray, B.: Informal learning in an online community of practice. J. Dist. Educ. 19(1), 20–35 (2004)

    Google Scholar 

  18. Hassenzahl, M., Burmester, M., Koller, F.: Attrakdiff: Ein fragebogen zur messung wahrgenommener hedonischer und pragmatischer qualität. In: Szwillus, G., Ziegler, J. (eds.) Mensch & Computer 2003, pp. 187–196. Springer, Heidelberg (2003). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-322-80058-9_19

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  19. Irvin, R.A., Stansbury, J.: Citizen participation in decision making: is it worth the effort? Public Adm. Rev. 64(1), 55–65 (2004)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  20. Johnson, R.B., Onwuegbuzie, A.J., Turner, L.A.: Toward a definition of mixed methods research. J. Mixed Methods Res. 1(2), 112–133 (2007)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  21. King, C.S., Feltey, K.M., Susel, B.O.: The question of participation: toward authentic public participation in public administration. Public Adm. Rev. 317–326 (1998)

    Google Scholar 

  22. Kitchin, R.: The real-time city? Big data and smart urbanism. GeoJournal 79(1), 1–14 (2014)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  23. Lackaff, D.: Case study: better reykjavik - open municipal policymaking. In: Civic Media: Technology, Design, Practice, p. 229 (2016)

    Google Scholar 

  24. Lago, N.: Digital platforms for participation in city plan: typology of citizens’ modes of presence. Technical report, University of Mons (2019)

    Google Scholar 

  25. Lago, N., Durieux, M., Pouleur, J.-A., Scoubeau, C., Elsen, C., Schelings, C.: Citizen participation through digital platforms: the challenging question of data processing for cities. In: Proceedings of the International Conference on Smart Cities, Systems, Devices and Technologies, pp. 19–25. International Academy, Research, and Industry Association (2019)

    Google Scholar 

  26. Lai, H.-M., Chen, T.T.: Knowledge sharing in interest online communities: a comparison of posters and lurkers. Comput. Hum. Behav. 35, 295–306 (2014)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  27. Lallemand, C., Gronier, G.: Méthodes de design UX. Éditions Eyrolles, Paris (2018)

    Google Scholar 

  28. Lallemand, C., Koenig, V., Gronier, G., Martin, R.: Création et validation d’une version française du questionnaire attrakdiff pour l’évaluation de l’expérience utilisateur des systèmes interactifs. Eur. Rev. Appl. Psychol. 65(5), 239–252 (2015)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  29. Lukensmeyer, C.J., Brigham, S.: Taking democracy to scale: creating a town hall meeting for the twenty-first century. Natl. Civ. Rev. 91(4), 351–366 (2002)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  30. Macintosh, A.: eParticipation in policy-making: the research and the challenges. In: Cunningham, P., Cunningham, M. (eds.) Exploiting the Knowledge Economy: Issues, Applications and Case Studies, vol. 3, pp. 364–369. IOS Press (2006)

    Google Scholar 

  31. Malinen, S.: Understanding user participation in online communities: a systematic literature review of empirical studies. Comput. Hum. Behav. 46, 228–238 (2015)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  32. McKenzie, P.J.: A model of information practices in accounts of everyday-life information seeking. J. Doc. 59(1), 19–40 (2003)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  33. Muller, M.: Lurking as personal trait or situational disposition: lurking and contributing in enterprise social media. In: Proceedings of the ACM Conference on Computer-Supported Cooperative Work, pp. 253–256. Association for Computing Machinery (2012)

    Google Scholar 

  34. Nielsen, J.: The 90-9-1 rule for participation inequality in social media and online communities (2006)

    Google Scholar 

  35. Nonnecke, B., Preece, J.: Lurker demographics: counting the silent. In: Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, pp. 73–80. Association for Computing Machinery (2000)

    Google Scholar 

  36. Nonnecke, B., Preece, J.: Silent participants: getting to know lurkers better. In: Lueg, C., Fisher, D. (eds.) From usenet to CoWebs, pp. 110–132. Springer, London (2003). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4471-0057-7_6

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  37. Preece, J., Nonnecke, B., Andrews, D.: The top five reasons for lurking: improving community experiences for everyone. Comput. Hum. Behav. 20(2), 201–223 (2004)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  38. Romariz Peixoto, L., Rectem, L., Pouleur, J.-A.: Citizen participation in architecture and urban planning confronted with arnstein’s ladder: four experiments into popular neighbourhoods of hainaut demonstrate another hierarchy. Architecture 2(1), 114–134 (2022)

    Google Scholar 

  39. Royo, S., Pina, V., Garcia-Rayado, J.: Decide Madrid: a critical analysis of an award-winning e-participation initiative. Sustainability 12(4), 1674 (2020)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  40. Rudd, J., Stern, K., Isensee, S.: Low vs. high-fidelity prototyping debate. Interactions 3(1), 76–85 (1996)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  41. Sandstrom, C., Bjork, J., et al.: Idea management systems for a changing innovation landscape. Int. J. Prod. Dev. 11(3–4), 310–324 (2010)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  42. Schelings, C.: Renouveau des approches participatives pour la fabrique de la Smart City. PhD thesis, Université de Liège (ULiège) (2021)

    Google Scholar 

  43. Serramia, M., et al.: Citizen support aggregation methods for participatory platforms. In: Artificial Intelligence Research and Development, pp. 9–18. IOS Press (2019)

    Google Scholar 

  44. Shneiderman, B.: The eyes have it: a task by data type taxonomy for information visualizations. In: Proceedings of the Symposium on Visual Languages, pp. 336–343. Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (1996)

    Google Scholar 

  45. Simonofski, A., Snoeck, M., Vanderose, B.: Co-creating e-government services: an empirical analysis of participation methods in Belgium. In: Rodriguez Bolivar, M.P. (ed.) Setting Foundations for the Creation of Public Value in Smart Cities. PAIT, vol. 35, pp. 225–245. Springer, Cham (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-98953-2_9

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  46. Smith, M.A., Kollock, P.: Communities in Cyberspace. Routledge, London (1999)

    Google Scholar 

  47. Sun, N., Rau, P.P.-L., Ma, L.: Understanding lurkers in online communities: a literature review. Comput. Hum. Behav. 38, 110–117 (2014)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  48. Takahashi, M., Fujimoto, M., Yamasaki, N.: The active lurker: influence of an in-house online community on its outside environment. In: Proceedings of the International SIGGROUP Conference on Supporting Group Work, pp. 1–10. Association for Computing Machinery (2003)

    Google Scholar 

  49. Tavanapour, N., Poser, M., Bittner, E.A.: Supporting the idea generation process in citizen participation-toward an interactive system with a conversational agent as facilitator. In: Proceedings of the European Conference on Information Systems, pp. 1–17 (2019)

    Google Scholar 

  50. Thiel, S.-K., Lehner, U.: Exploring the effects of game elements in m-participation. In: Proceedings of the British HCI Conference, pp. 65–73 (2015)

    Google Scholar 

  51. Moere, A.V., Hill, D.: Designing for the situated and public visualization of urban data. J. Urban Technol. 19(2), 25–46 (2012)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  52. Zeng, Z., et al.: The impact of social nudges on user-generated content for social network platforms. Management Science (2022). https://pubsonline.informs.org/doi/full/10.1287/mnsc.2022.4622

Download references

Acknowledgements

The research pertaining to these results received financial aid from the Federal Science Policy according to the agreement of subsidy no. [B2/223/P3/BeCoDigital]. Financial support was also received from the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) for the Wal-e-Cities project with award number [ETR121200003138] and from the Research Public Service of Wallonia (SPW Recherche) for the project ARIAC by DIGITALWALLONIA4AI with award number [2010235].

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Namur Digital Institute, University of Namur, Namur, Belgium

    Antoine Clarinval, Julien Albert, Bruno Dumas & Annick Castiaux

  2. Inter’Act Lab, University of Liège, Liège, Belgium

    Clémentine Schelings & Catherine Elsen

Authors
  1. Antoine Clarinval
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Julien Albert
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Clémentine Schelings
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  4. Catherine Elsen
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  5. Bruno Dumas
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  6. Annick Castiaux
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Antoine Clarinval .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne, Paris, France

    Selmin Nurcan

  2. University of Bergen, Bergen, Norway

    Andreas L. Opdahl

  3. University of Essex, Colchester, UK

    Haralambos Mouratidis

  4. Ionian University, Corfu, Greece

    Aggeliki Tsohou

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2023 The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG

About this paper

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this paper

Clarinval, A., Albert, J., Schelings, C., Elsen, C., Dumas, B., Castiaux, A. (2023). Idea Browsing on Digital Participation Platforms: A Mixed-Methods Requirements Study. In: Nurcan, S., Opdahl, A.L., Mouratidis, H., Tsohou, A. (eds) Research Challenges in Information Science: Information Science and the Connected World. RCIS 2023. Lecture Notes in Business Information Processing, vol 476. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-33080-3_3

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-33080-3_3

  • Published:

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-031-33079-7

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-031-33080-3

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics