HCI-Evaluation of the GeoCitizen-reporting App for citizen participation in spatial planning and community management among members of marginalized communities in Cali, Colombia

Abstract

Increasingly, geospatial web applications such as www.fixmystreet.com or www.seeclickfix.com are being integrated within citizen participation processes in spatial planning and the provision of communal services. Recently, several of these platforms have been launched in Latin America and other countries of the Global South. This development raises the questions of whether citizens with low ICT-skills can fully access and use these tools, and hence whether they are empowered to participate in related community management processes. The GeoCitizen framework (www.geocitizen.org) has been designed specifically to address citizens who tend to be excluded from established planning processes, providing them with accessible and easy-to-use online tools to make their voice heard through the public space of the internet. This paper describes the set-up and results of a Human Computer Interaction (HCI) Evaluation carried out for the GeoCitizen-reporting application amongst members of marginalized communities in Cali, Colombia. It investigates whether spatially illiterate users with low ICT-skills can access and use this application to its full extent. It analyses the most common usability issues that were identified by the test user group and gives indications as to how geospatial web applications should be designed in order to meet the challenges that come along with its use.

GeoFarmer: A monitoring and feedback system for agricultural development projects

“…The GeoCitizen platform has been applied for development projects in a long-term study in Ecuador, where it has been used in a participatory land-zoning process. Furthermore, GeoCitizen was subjected to a Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) evaluation study, carried out for the GeoCitizen-reporting application amongst members of marginalized communities in Cali, Colombia ( Atzmanstorfer et al, 2016 ).…”

“…Usability studies and the evaluation of Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) are an essential step in developing meaningful applications for users of marginalized communities with low ICT-skills. Within the GeoCitizen study, researchers carried out an in-depth HCI evaluation of its mobile app ( Atzmanstorfer et al, 2016 ). We did not find it necessary to repeat this study for the GeoFarmer.…”

Evaluating PPGIS Usability in a Multi-National Field Study Combining Qualitative Surveys and Eye-Tracking

“…In 2015, Atzmanstorfer et al (2016) conducted a usability study with GeoCitizen with participants from marginalized communities from Cali, Colombia. Since then, GeoCitizen developed into a tool that is used in…”

“…The study consisted of two parts (Table 2). In the first part (based on Atzmanstorfer et al (2016)), we asked the participants to carry out six tasks with the application. We measured three usability metrics (Nielsen, 2001): first, the effectiveness was assessed through the error rate in the completion of these taskscompletion without errors, with light non-critical errors, with moderate non-critical errors and with critical errors.…”

“…citizens, urban planners, city or municipality staff, scientists), their education, their interests, and so on. Prior usability studies in GIScience and related fields (such as Haklay and Tobón 2003, Meng and Malczewski 2009a, Bugs et al 2010, Newman et al 2010, Bugs 2012, Poplin 2015, Atzmanstorfer et al 2016, Gottwald et al 2016 have not investigated how to deal with multiple user types while maintaining a high level of usability. Some studies include facilitators who can intervene and help users who may need assistance in using a PPGIS through capacity building or one-on-one support (Aditya, 2010;Eitzinger et al, 2019).…”