In the context of the participation society, roles and expectations of citizens and municipalities are vastly changing. While designers explore the potentials of apps to empower citizens, municipalities are interested in data dashboards -accompanied by applications and platforms -to increase civic participation in public (space) issues. Due to diverse levels of data-literacy and expectations regarding the use of civic apps, more scrutiny is needed when it comes to claims of empowerment. This paper departs from the premise that designers often deal with disappointments in the balance of investment and participation span due to a lack of knowledge about underlying mechanisms. Relevant criteria are discussed through reflecting on two civic apps that were designed by the authors and analysing prominent existing civic apps that have citizen empowerment as their objective. By laying these out in a taxonomy the paper aims to examine why and where discrepancies occur in expectations and levels of participation.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.