Online user community for efficient citizen participation

Involving citizens in the development activities of a company or public sector is getting more and more important to be able to design e.g. services, products, and city plans that people like and want to use. To be able to develop online user communities that support company or public sector user research needs, it is important to focus on customer perceptions of online user communities. This paper addresses customer perceptions of crowdsourcing and citizen participation through an online user community. Empirical data was collected in two phases: through a pre-study containing interviews and an online survey with 52 participants in total and a follow-up interview for seven selected informants after using an online user community for citizen involvement in the development activity. Several real-life citizen involvement activities conducted through the case online user community are presented in the paper. Findings show that the online user involvement platform PATIO's customers have experienced it as an easy, fast, and cost-effective way to involve citizens in different development activities. Findings also suggest that an online user involvement platform and user community allows collecting rich feedback because of an easy access to target end-users. The results of the study contribute to the scientific discussion on crowdsourcing, citizen participation and living labs, and the development of efficient online tools in this context.

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