App Movement

Abstract

There is an increasing demand to encourage inclusivity in the design of digital services. In response to this issue we have created App Movement, a platform that enables the promotion, collaborative design, and deployment of community-commissioned mobile applications. The platform facilitates collaborative customization of a common app template, for which the development and deployment of the app is fully automated. We describe the motivation, design and implementation of App Movement, and report the findings from an 8 month deployment wherein 27 campaigns were created, 11 of which have been successful, and over 1,600 users pledged their support using the platform. We present three case studies to demonstrate its use and adoption in successful and unsuccessful campaigns. We discuss the implications of these studies, including questions of governance (ownership of content, liability of user generated content and moderation), sustainability and the potential to extend App Movement beyond location-based review apps.

Between Grassroots and the Hierarchy

“…Moreover, in the past, this has led to technologies that could be described in themselves as 'middle-out'. For example [17], a platform designed to be shaped by a 'movement' of community actors. Taken altogether then, we suggest that HCI researchers can only hope to make significant shifts in these infrastructures by embracing their own middle-out position.…”

“…The field of Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) has a growing interest in technologies for civic participation that promote bottom up processes in communities [3,17,18,43,47]. Recent work evidences a 'civic turn' in the field [5,27] that privileges citizen voice and empowerment, and the expansion of 'digital civics' as a field of enquiry [2,38].…”

"Protection on that Erection?"

“…The second author has developed 'App Movement' [9], a platform which delivers community-commissioned locationbased review mobile applications. Our initial engagement period of around 6 months involved numerous meetings with representatives from the 10 individually managed areas across the local region for the 'Condom Token' scheme.…”

“…Commissioning an 'App Movement' involves a staged process of 'support', 'design' and 'launch' (explained in [9]). Campaigns require 150 users to register their support before it is moved into the 'design' and 'launch' phase.…”

Strategies for Engaging Communities in Creating Physical Civic Technologies

“…14,15,29,34]. Other examples of civic technologies in neighbourhoods and communities have included locative apps [13] and citizen sensing [8] and have often been grounded in DIY activities, such as fruit foraging [9], which show citizens taking an active role in shaping their environment.…”