Flash-Poll

© scanrail/fotolia

Project Flash-Poll Tool
In urban planning, questions that directly affect the lives of residents are often posed. Participation through elections and polling is often insufficient, as the time periods are extensive and future questions cannot be foreseen at the time of the vote. In order to understand current opinions in regard to new questions, supplemental instruments for citizen participation are necessary.

This is the focus of the project “Flash-Poll Tool”. The goal is to develop a tool that makes quick and continuous communication between citizens and decision-makers possible. For this, a smartphone app that can be used to carry out flash polls is to be developed. Using the feedback function, urban decision-making processes can be supported.

Following the first trials at universities and schools, the project team plans to test the app in Berlin, Paris, Nantes and Stockholm. The polling tool is intended to overcome the problems of classic online surveys:

• interest groups mobilise their supporters and manipulate results
• the relationship between those surveyed, those surveying and the topic of the survey question is not given
• surveys take too long
• users do not become any feedback in regard to the overall results

The flash-poll tool uses spatially relevant, contextual information and spatial information to address specific user groups of urban spaces. The mobile polling via smartphones makes it possible to place the poll within concise spatial and factual contexts. As this is a tool for public clients, data protection and personal rights play a central role. nexus’s subtask is to research user needs and to develop usage scenarios for Berlin.
Current

General coordination: Institut für Berufliche Bildung und Arbeitslehre (IBBA), Technische Universität Berlin  

Research partners:
nexus

Project partners:
Zentrum Technik und Gesellschaft (ZTG), Technische Universität Berlin
Quality and Usability Labs (QU Labs), Technische Universität Berlin
Service-centric Networking (SNET), Technische Universität Berlin
Deutsche Telekom
KTH - Kungliga Tekniska högskolan (Königlich Technische Hochschule), Stockholm
Universität Stockholm
Alfstore, Frankreich
Missions Publiques, Frankreich

Commissioned by:
European Institutes of Technology, Forschungsserie Digital Cities

Duration: 01/2013 – 12/2015

Nexus staff members:
Christoph Henseler (Gesamtkoordination)
Dr. Angela Jain (Projektleitung nexus)