Voice to Vision: A Sociotechnical System for Transparent Civic Decision-Making
Name
3715070.3757228.pdf
Size
874.87 KB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
c8b403eaa20b5e5a87930ed66d049660
Author(s)
Hughes, Margaret
Overney, Cassandra
Kamra, Ashima
Tepale, Jasmin
Hamby, Elizabeth
Jasim, Mahmood
Roy, Deb
Date Issued
October 17, 2025
Publisher
ACM|Companion of the Computer-Supported Cooperative Work and Social Computing
Citation
Margaret Hughes, Cassandra Overney, Ashima Kamra, Jasmin Tepale, Elizabeth Hamby, Mahmood Jasim, and Deb Roy. 2025. Voice to Vision: A Sociotechnical System for Transparent Civic Decision-Making. In Companion Publication of the 2025 Conference on Computer-Supported Cooperative Work and Social Computing (CSCW Companion '25). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 525–527.
Version
Final published version
Abstract
Communities frequently report sending feedback “into a void” during community engagement processes like neighborhood planning, creating a critical disconnect between public input and decision-making. Voice to Vision addresses this gap with a sociotechnical system that comprises three integrated components: a flexible data architecture linking community input to planning outputs, a sensemaking interface for planners to analyze and synthesize feedback, and a community-facing platform that makes the entire engagement process transparent. By creating a shared information space between stakeholders, our system demonstrates how structured data and specialized interfaces can foster cooperation across stakeholder groups, while addressing tensions in accessibility and trust formation. Our CSCW demonstration will showcase this system’s ability to transform opaque civic decision-making processes into collaborative exchanges, inviting feedback on its potential applications beyond urban planning.
Description
CSCW Companion ’25, Bergen, Norway
MIT Department
Program in Media Arts and Sciences (Massachusetts Institute of Technology)
Terms of Use
Creative Commons Attribution
Persistent DSpace Link
DOI of Published Version
https://doi.org/10.1145/3715070.3757228
