Design by (User) Community Jessica Seddon Indian Institute for Human Settlements Visiting Fellow, U.S. EPA

Some Challenges “Sticky information” – matching problems framed in social terms with responses in technology terms – Differing imaginations of what’s possible. Strategic incentives to lie – Risk aversion, transparency aversion Voice: Power and standing of users “Sovereignty” issues: standards as public institutions with political consequences

TALE OF 2 SYSTEMS

Public Grievance & Redressal System Platform for accepting citizen complaints, routing them into government departmental systems. Reports performance on addressing complaints to managers + public, real time. Software in use in 130+ cities in India

Data Providers Federal – 10 State and Provincial – 51 Local – 41 Tribal – 12 Other – monitoring sites Multi-pollutants (e.g., ozone and particles) Data Users Federal agencies (e.g., NOAA, USFS) Media (e.g., CNN, The Weather Channel) Weather Service Providers (e.g., AccuWeather, WeatherBug) Local media Universities (e.g. UMD Smog Blog) Researchers Websites/Apps (private/government) AIRNow (

AttributeAIRNowPGR UsersData providers, app developers, regulators, citizens Citizens, city workers, city managers, state government LeadershipData Provider Steering Committee State government User ForaSteering Committee Meetings, informal interaction Yahoo Group, informal interaction User LeverageEPA Program funding justified by number of users Limited Context for User Involvement

7 Evolution of AIRNow Shanghai

Public Grievance and Redressal Intense pre-product consultation, limited additional changes. Mixed city adoption, even when bundled with other products. Design ideas from three sources: – User innovation & customization in specific cases (bounded by technology barriers) – Required explicit and additional effort to elicit user feedback. – Analysis of usage patterns.

What Seemed to Work? User participation often takes extra effort – User innovation tactics: Identify & involve “lead users” – Creation of boundary organizations Insulate user fora from user organization hierarchies. Connect discussions to leadership & decisionmaking. Revealed preference + stated preferences: usage tracking