Motivating Crowds to Volunteer Neighborhood Data

TLDR: This study investigates ways to motivate local crowds to serve as the world's sensors and provide geographical data about their surroundings through games and a pilot study to understand whether people can motivate people to contribute data to their neighborhoods via games or for the greater social good of helping the neighborhood.

Abstract: Organizations invest resources to gather geographical information about cities or neighborhoods. This can help governments or companies identify needed services or city improvements. However, collecting this information can be difficult and expensive. In this study we investigate ways to motivate local crowds to serve as the world's sensors and provide geographical data about their surroundings. We conduct interviews and a pilot study to understand whether we can motivate people to contribute data about their neighborhoods via games or for the greater social good of helping the neighborhood. Our results provide a glimpse of how people feel about donating neighborhood data given different motivators; they also provide insight into the amount of data people are willing to contribute. We conclude by discussing possible design implications of our findings.