Empowering smart city residents through legibility

Empowering smart city residents through legibility: A Digital Tool to Discover Smart City Projects

Esquivel Duran, Paloma (TU Delft Industrial Design Engineering)

Kortuem, G.W. (mentor)
Lomas, J.D. (graduation committee)

Delft University of Technology

Design for Interaction

2020-09-29

The role that smart technologies play and the data they generate is becoming central in cities; cities are adopting technologies as a new way of governance and making policies based on data. Increasingly, governments and companies implement data-driven strategies, and the number of sensors in the public space is increasing. This translates into abysmal amounts of data about people, their behavior and habits. While the use of smart technologies in cities and specifically in Amsterdam has many potential benefits—from improving local economy and transportation to quality of life and e-governance—there is a growing concern about the ethical risks. Martinez-Balleste et al. (2013) identify that their use in cities jeopardize citizens’ privacy. Moreover, one of the main problems of smart technologies in the public realm is that they are often placed without users’ consent and without providing any notice of their presence. At the same time, the attitude of smart city residents towards this new paradigm — along with the ethical, social and privacy implications that derive from it — is one of indifference. The misalignment between smart city residents attitudes and privacy behaviour is what motivates this project. This project aims to engage smart city residents with smart technologies in order to create awareness, better understanding of the privacy implications and build a democratic process for smart cities. The design solution focuses on empowering smart city users by making smart technologies, its privacy implications and data insights legible for users. By building this knowledge and making privacy implications more visible, users will be able to notice smart technologies in the public realm and spread awareness. Moreover, they will be better equipped to make inform decisions about smart city projects and co-shape the city they envision.

Smart City
Artificial Intelligence and Design
Design for Interaction
Sensors
Ethics
Internet of Things
Amsterdam
legibility

http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:7d5b182f-08b5-4e50-9466-546ab803b5d2

Student theses

master thesis

© 2020 Paloma Esquivel Duran