Where can Berliners go to quickly find all the information they need on participation formats and citizens’ initiatives near them? The KiezRadar (“Neighbourhood Radar”) app provides proactive, needs-based and personalised information to help keep citizens up to date on key events in politics and administration. To date, the Fraunhofer Institute for Open Communications Systems has developed a prototype – in close cooperation with users, as the project also aimed to test such a process.

The impetus for the KiezRadar project was originally provided by the personal experience of an employee at the Fraunhofer Institute for Open Communications Systems (Fraunhofer FOKUS): he was looking for information on a construction site outside his home, but a quick online search yielded no helpful data on the duration or the purpose of the project. Discussions with his colleagues got the idea for KiezRadar rolling: an app that proactively informs citizens of political and administrative events in their neighbourhood, grants easy access to the city’s digital offers and at the same time helps users get involved in local administration at the ground level.

The project was launched in late October 2019. In close cooperation with the Berlin Senate Chancellery and CityLAB Berlin, the Fraunhofer FOKUS team developed a prototype of such a mobile application. First research showed: while in principle, most information is readily available on the web, it tends to be spread out across a lot of systems and protocols, making it challenging to pool. During the app’s development, the involvement of users was part of the concept from day one – from the initial idea to the functioning pilot. As Susanna Kuper, project lead and UX specialist at Fraunhofer FOKUS explains: “In Berlin, we started from a point where in general, many citizens want to help shape their city and their neighbourhood and participate in political events.”
 

Paper prototypes and “thinking aloud”

CityLAB Berlin organised workshops – some of which were held as digital events due to the coronavirus – at which the team got together with citizens and employees in administration to determine their desires and needs regarding the app’s functionality, operation and interface. These desires and needs were later implemented and re-evaluated by test groups. During the workshops, participants furthermore used paper prototypes to develop their own ideas on how to implement the app.  The team employed the think-aloud method for the user tests, while the development process was supported by the compilation of graphic designs of the future app – called mock-ups – the development of click prototypes and the derivation of personas to help take the perspective of various user groups. Over the course of the process, the team used this valuable input to make regular adaptations to the interface, menu navigation, operation and specific functions within the app.
 

Prototype with four different views
 

Entries and information on events and projects make up the main content of the KiezRadar prototype the team ultimately developed. Users can choose between four different views: “Discover”, “Map”, “Favourites” and “Search”. The latter helps users find events near them; they can also “Favourite” entries by marking them with a star. One of the app’s central functions enables users to filter information: by type of event (committee meetings, participation projects, quarter management); by theme (e.g. Culture and Leisure, Environment and Green Spaces, Health and Sports, Construction and Housing, Traffic); by location (users can share their location with the app if they wish); by radius in kilometres; and by periods of time. This allows users to define in advance which events they would like to see and thus customise them. The “Discover” view, on the other hand, provides a compact overview of all entries; it can be categorised by date, geographic distance and popularity; the “Discover” and “Map” views both allow users to open detailed views of entries. Data privacy is a key issue, and is guaranteed as the app processes personal data locally on the user’s smartphone.

For information on the prototype’s functions and views, start video at 10:59. (German only)
 

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User-centric approach adds clear value
 

Often, applications are good on paper but fail to meet a need in practice. KiezRadar is different. The team at Fraunhofer FOKUS met with stakeholders, among them contacts from quarter management, representatives of the Pankow and Reinickendorf district parliaments, the Berlin Senate Chancellery, employees in administration and citizens; the ensuing discussions showed a clear need. “We can say that the user-centric approach adds clear value,” says Susanna Kuper. “Especially in the beginning, the impetus we got by involving users directly was key and had a very clear and positive impact on the quality of our results.” The systematic approach based on hypotheses also proved valuable to the process, as did the use of the think-aloud method.

The team also gained another positive experience: thanks to careful project preparation, they managed to eliminate concerns around participative app development, among them “the project will be talked to death”, “we won’t be able to reconcile requirements” or “a project like that will fall apart”. And the team took away another key learning from the process: when acquiring participants for workshops and tests, it makes sense to not only use digital channels but to advertise in the paper as well, as this makes sure the circle of participants includes people who have less of an affinity to the digital world. The team also suggests coupling acquisition to events; a cooperation with the Berlin Science Week, for example, helped the team win over a diverse range of users for testing. The team further recommends meeting in person during the participation process, especially when dealing with larger groups –  as digital workshop formats have their limits when it comes to interpersonal relations.
 

Future focus of development: the desires and needs of administration
 

The KiezRadar project ended in March 2021. In future, transparency, and Open Source, will allow other actors to use the code for their own projects: the back end, app and API code (Application Programming Interface) are all available to the public. The project report can also be accessed online and contains documentation for users and developers as well as the team’s experiences and learnings. The further development of the app will now focus on KiezRadar’s transformation from a prototype to a fully functional app in permanent operation and to measure the effectiveness of its use. Today, KiezRadar already contains the data from various districts; the team will develop and integrate other data sources in future. In addition, Fraunhofer FOKUS is currently in talks with the Berlin Senate Chancellery regarding a possible continuation in the context of mein.Berlin.de; the use and continuation of the app by the Pankow District Office is also being considered.

“Over the course of the last three years, the KiezRadar project has shown that not only is it possible to involve citizens in app development, it is also extremely helpful – for the app’s design as well as when it comes to developing concrete functions,” says Susanna Kuper. “We will now focus in particular on the desires and needs of employees in administration: what do they hope the app will do, which functions do they feel make sense, and which perhaps don’t? We are looking forward to the next steps and our ongoing cooperation with the Berlin administration on this project.” (vdo)

Further information (German only)
 

KiezRadar – Final project report
KiezRadar – Open Source