Abstract
Urban decision-making is no longer a one-way, top-down authoritative command or a bottom-up advocacy, but has shifted toward a bidirectional model of citizen co-creation and dialogue. This transformation enables citizens to move from passive recipients of policy to co-designers of the city's future. To support this ongoing two-way communication, this study proposes four design goals and practical strategies through a literature review, leading to the development of “My City Module”—a gamified, participatory, interactive tool. Combining modular design with data visualization, this tool fosters sustained digital participation in urban planning by enabling citizens to intuitively and concretely express their visions and needs for the future city. An integrated dashboard visualizes inputs in real time, facilitating responsive dialogue with policymakers. Field testing results indicate the tool supports long-term collaboration between communities and decision-makers in shaping urban development. Serving as a reference for future digital participatory tools in urban governance, this tool also facilitates the transformation of civic roles—from passive information providers to active urban co-creators—helping expand city planning beyond expert-centric approaches toward citizen-driven participation.
Keywords
City Co-creation; Participatory Design; Gamification in Planning; Modular Design Tool
DOI
https://doi.org/10.21606/iasdr.2025.431
Citation
Liao, I.,and Hsieh, Y.(2025) My City Module： A Participatory Tool for City Co-design, in Chang, C.-Y., and Hsu, Y. (eds.), IASDR 2025: Design Next, 02-05 December, Taiwan. https://doi.org/10.21606/iasdr.2025.431
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License
Conference Track
Track 6 - Co-creation
My City Module： A Participatory Tool for City Co-design
Urban decision-making is no longer a one-way, top-down authoritative command or a bottom-up advocacy, but has shifted toward a bidirectional model of citizen co-creation and dialogue. This transformation enables citizens to move from passive recipients of policy to co-designers of the city's future. To support this ongoing two-way communication, this study proposes four design goals and practical strategies through a literature review, leading to the development of “My City Module”—a gamified, participatory, interactive tool. Combining modular design with data visualization, this tool fosters sustained digital participation in urban planning by enabling citizens to intuitively and concretely express their visions and needs for the future city. An integrated dashboard visualizes inputs in real time, facilitating responsive dialogue with policymakers. Field testing results indicate the tool supports long-term collaboration between communities and decision-makers in shaping urban development. Serving as a reference for future digital participatory tools in urban governance, this tool also facilitates the transformation of civic roles—from passive information providers to active urban co-creators—helping expand city planning beyond expert-centric approaches toward citizen-driven participation.