An Experience on Cooperative Development of Interactive Visualizations for the Analysis of Urban Data

Digital technologies and social networks offer several possibilities for improving the quality of life in Smart Cities. Citizens are willing to contribute to the efficiency of services that Smart Cities offer by reporting through different channels, such as phone/fax, front office, website, mobile app, sensors, several problems they observe in the city. This paper contributes to the advancement of the practice of HCI by describing an experience carried out with the employees of a municipality about the identification and implementation of interactive visualizations, in order to support them in the management of urban issues reported by citizens. The performed experience was inspired by the Cooperative Method Development (CMD), that emphasizes a strong collaboration between IT researchers and experts in a work practice, working side by side and being focused on the practitioners’ problems, in order to identify critical aspects and possible improvements that lead to the design and development of new software artifacts. The municipality employees greatly appreciated their active involvement in the overall CMD process, as well as the improvements on data analysis, thanks to the developed interactive visualizations that enable them to detect trends, anomalies and significant facts in the management of urban issues.