mobile awareness and participation in community-oriented activities
We describe the iterative design of a location-sensitive mobile application for community engagement and its use at two consecutive community-oriented "First Night" (New Year's Eve) events. Based on initial analysis of personal status posts, blog posts, and semi-structured interviews, we show that providing users with mobile tools relevant to time and locational contexts in their community can scaffold engagement within a community. In the second year of the study we draw from server log data after the event was promoted for public use. Enhancements to the design are discussed to further support civic participation in distributed community contexts, and design lessons are drawn.
civic participation mobile blogging civic engagement location sensitive applications