SoloCityMap

Map for participatory processes in Solo, Central Java, Indonesia

Target users

We have identified two different target users for this map:

Kelurahan Officer/ Facilitator or City-levelBappeda Official

The primary user is a person with more understanding about the macro scale behavior of the city. For this user, tools such as color coded maps of the city and filtering of the data would be needed. The more advanced views for this user type should lie unobtrusively as to not overwhelm the general user.

We're aiming to train the kelurahan officials how to use this tool as a way to monitor the process, to make it more transparent. One thing is going to be tracking, I think they'll want to use it to track and visualize those projects that were implemented (so they can feel good about implementing prioritized projects) and those that were proposed but not approved, or proposed and not yet implemented. Visualizing the projects proposed/ projects selected/ projects implemented/ project not yet implemented would be great; even better to see year to year if they are achieving success.

Tara is working on identifying the kelurahans with the most ghost projects and the kelurahans with the most prioritized/ implemented projects. Such visualizations could serve as great incentives/ disincentives. I think we want something that can make them competitive with each other about who's doing a better job.

Local resident of a Kelurahan who participated in the budgeting process

The secondary user for the map is the everyday resident of one of Solo’s neighborhoods, a person that has access to the Internet with a mobile device, but limited knowledge of software tools or understanding about policy making city governance. The most important view for this user would be a streamlined view centered on his or her kelurahan, showing a list of projects on that administrative division, their location, some basic filtering tools, pictures of the projects and a way to socially interact with each of the projects.

Another principal user we hope are residents who are keen to follow up on the progress of their selected projects. Thus you might have a keen resident or RT leader who participated in the session and wants to see if the project ended up being selected, and then what the state of implementation its in. This is where I see the social media functions (where people can upload photos and contribute to a blog) would be great. They can go online and see what's happened to their project and how long its taking to get implemented from the date it was selected.

Other functions are for those who want to compare the social-economic indicators with the projects themselves, for example, whether the water projects correspond to the areas which concentrate a lack of access to water. Also whether projects are focused on areas of poor, or rather areas of non-poor.