This is my honours visual communuication design project.

With your help, we can change the relationship we have with government in New Zealand.

Ask Away:
The path towards Participatory E-Democracy in New Zealand
The design of interactive web platforms can break down the barriers between people and government, creating an open democracy where citizens can know more, say more and do more.
I will spend until November this year designing a web platform to facilitate online political engagement. Before the 2014 election, it can be functioning, but Ill need your help: Coders, join me in a weekend hackathon to get the basic functionality working. Longer term partners, come on board to keep the project moving. Politicians, show that accountability and responsiveness are your priorities and make sure it gets used. Or just have a chat with me about it.

Are you interested? Email me.

Meg Howie Massey University Wellington, New Zealand Howiemeg@gmail.com Meghowieresearchproject.tumblr.com

This is the age of transparency, whether business, individuals and politicians like it or not. Government can become porous, sending information out and allowing peoples thoughts and wishes in. Transparency leads to greater confidence in government, reduces the chances of corruption and provide a fair space for businesses to operate (OECD, 2013). The tools of the internet mean that for the first time gathering opinions and sharing information is not prohibited by financial cost (Breuer & Farooq, 2012), and people are using them to deliver services, co-create and reach consensuses. An examination of existing tools for civic engagement in New Zealand, shows they are fragmented and do not cater to those who do not seek them out. New Zealand needs a space for discussion that is accessible to people with different levels of interest and knowledge about political issues. Access, information, engagement and activation are the core outcomes of my project; access to issues that are relevant to the individual, information that is digestible and balanced, a range of ways to engage and enabling mechanisms so that citizens can play a more active role in the governing of Aotearoa, New Zealand.

7 best practice techniques:

1. Default options
Huge changes can be implemented simply by changing default settings. This can be applied to the structure of interactions.

2. Follow the crowd

As a first step people need to have access to a larger groups ideas in order to agree with them, because people behave as others around them do (Heath, 2010, Latane and Darley, 1968). Some will always be active, but the benefits of their actions can be multiplied if they are visible to others.

3. Prioritising and agreeing mechanisms

Using up-voting means the best content floats, and would help politicians understand where public opinion is focused. Another strength of this technique is that it offers an easy entry-level way to engage.

4. Offsite communications
Prompt people to return and contribute over a long period of time, and can deliver customised content that offers value to the user.

5. Social media integration

Brings people to the platform organically.

Precedents
The internet is being used to: Spread awareness Pool voices /prioritise Generate discussion Reach consensuses. (See links at end for examples)

6. Gamification
A successful way of increasing and maintaining engagement.

7 . Two way dialogues

It is vital that users are not only given the impression that they are being listened to, but are provided with meaningful responses from the politicians they are addressing.

Target audience.
To begin with: anyone who reads the news online.

3
Above Homepage wireframe (before visual design is applied)

sarah westify

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@paulabennet, what mechanisms are in place to protect vulnerable kids under your welfare reforms? Click on the question asked by @Nigel33 and 343,766 others to learn more @johnkey, can you provide funding for milkshake machines for massey university? asked by @Nigel33 and 343,766 others All Parties, what are your priorities for education? asked by @gpatel and 234,700 others

answered by @paulabennet
at 5.14pm 3rd June 2013

Above Site map Below Potential landing page

Outcomes
The end goal of the project is to transform the publics relationship with government. Four outcomes will define this transformation. People have access to information about relevant political events as they happen without having to seek it out They are informed about a range of opinions and issues They take ownership of and engage with the democratic process People are active as citizens. My definition of an active citizen is someone who is consciously aware that decisions are being made which will affect them, keeps track of what is going on and in some way inputs to those decisions.

The results of this transformation will be that Government are held accountable for their actions, and transparency is demanded at all times. It will mean marginalized voices are better heard, increasing understanding and inclusion within our society. As we gain a better understanding of political issues, we can make increasingly important contributions to the governance of our country. Having one unified consultation and discussion hub would mean that people would know where to go when submitting their views, information would be encountered not sought, and the experience of political engagement would go from a sporadic, often unrewarding activity to a positive sustained relationship with Government. People will vote based on issues and policies, rather than assumptions or personalities. This is the first step towards a truly open and participatory democracy.

Sources and links

Best Practice Links
All Our Ideas. Digital survey platform www.allourideas.org If We Ran The World. Micro activist platform www.Ifwerantheworld.com Rio+20 Dialogues. Generation and prioritisation of discussion points www.worldwewant2015.org/pt-br/node/302732 The Green Machine. The Green Party (NZ)s gamified campaign volunteer strategy my.greens.org.nz/greenmachine Loomio. Online collaborative decision making tool www.loomio.org On the fence. Interactive voter education tool www.onthefence.co.nz We the People. The White Houses online survey platform petitions.whitehouse.gov Better Reykjavik. Local body election discussion generation and prioritisation tool betrireykjavik.is

Better life index: Civic engagement. (2013). Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. Retreived from: http://www.oecdbetterlifeindex.org/topics/civic-engagement/ Breuer, A, Farooq, B. (2012).Online political participation: Slacktivism or efficiency increased activism? Prepared for delivery at the 2012 ISA Annual Convention San Diego, April 1 4. retrieved from: http://www. academia.edu/1476245/Online_Political_Participation_ Slacktivism_or_Efficiency_Increased_Activism_Evidence_from_the_Brazilian_Ficha_Limpa_Campaign Drutman, L. (2010). Get politically engaged, get happy? Retrieved from: http://www.psmag.com/politics/ get-politically-engaged-get-happy-8307/ Gamification. (2010). Freebase. Retrieved from: http://www.freebase.com/m/0cm8xv9 Gormley, I. (Director). (2009). Us now. [Documentary film]. Banyak Films. Heath, C. & Heath, D. (2010). Switch: How to change things when change is hard. Crown Publishing Group. Latane, B., & Darley, J. (1969). Bystander apathy. American Scientist, 1969, 57, 244-268. Retrieved from: http://faculty.babson.edu/krollag/org_site/soc_psych/ latane_bystand.html Masli, M., & Terveen, L. (2012). Evaluating compliance-without-pressure techniques for increasing participation in online communities. Grouplens Research. Retrieved from: http://www.grouplens.org/system/files/ evaluatingcompliance.pdf Pine, B., & Gilmore, J. (1999). The customer is the product. In The Experience Economy. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press. Rotman, D., Vieweg, S., Yardi, S., Chi, E., Preece, J., ...Glaisyer, T. (2011). From slacktivism to activism: Participatory culture in the age of social media. CHI11, Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems. Retrieved from: http://www.cc.gatech.edu/~yardi/ pubs/Yardi_CHI11_SIG.pdf Statistics New Zealand. (2013) Household use of information and communication technology: 2012. Retrieved from: www.stats.govt.nz/~/media/.../HouseholdUseofICT2012HOTP.pdf