Data collection through crowdsourcing

Industry

Social impact

Crowdsourcing

Urban development

Country

Finnland 🇫🇮

Timeline

Jan-Mar 2022

Platform

Mobile app

Admin web dashboard

Team

iOS & Android developers

Project manager

Product designer & Illustrator

Lead Product designer (my role)

Crowdsorsa is an innovative app that transforms road and city infrastructure monitoring into an exciting challenge. Users become citizen reporters, sharing their experiences and contributing to the improvement of their city's conditions.

About

As users go about their daily lives, they can record videos of their drives or capture photos while walking. Crowdsorsa empowers users to be alert guardians of their surroundings. From potholes and uneven pavements to broken benches in the park, users can meticulously document various defects and issues.

But here's where the fun twist comes in – the app introduces collectibles like coins, blueberries, cherries and more, that users can gather along their journey. These collectibles have real-world value, with each object carrying a monetary worth.

Users can embark on exciting missions, earn rewards, and make a positive impact on their surroundings – all while having fun along the way.

Challenges

Questions we had along the way:

How can we transform road monitoring and city infrastructure tracking into an engaging and exciting activity?
How can we design a user-friendly app that encourages users to capture GPS-tagged videos while driving or take photos while walking?
How can we ensure the accuracy and reliability of user-generated content while still making the experience enjoyable?

✦ Process ✦

Discovery workshop

We began with a Discovery workshop to map the client's and team's knowledge and facilitate idea transfer. Throughout the workshop, we engaged in various activities to clearly define the scope of the project. This helped us establish a solid foundation and ensure that everyone involved has a shared understanding.

Wireframes

Than we proceeded with creating wireframes. These wireframes served as a blueprint, setting the guidelines for the app's layout and design.

Information architecture

Following the workshop, we distilled crucial insights and crafted a comprehensive sitemap. This sitemap meticulously details the screens, features, and their interrelationships, providing a clear and strategic roadmap for the next phase.

Design system

During the UI design phase, we specified the design system and components that will be used. Components were integrated into designed screens, ensuring visual consistency across the entire app.

Video and
photo missions

Video mission begins with the user selecting a mission from the map, which is a requested road sequence to record. The user then proceeds to drive through the mission with a car or bike while recording the road with their phone.

The quality of the video needs to be good to enable AI to detect holes, pavement defects, and other objects on the road later on. To achieve this, the user needs to attach their mobile phone to the windshield using a mobile phone holder.

For the photo missions, objects should be photographed from different sides, which are shown to the user via instructions.

Money rewards

The money rewards are earned after the data has been uploaded and quality-checked, usually within a day after completing the task. Data can be video or photo, depending on the mission type.

Leaderboard

Leaderboard ranks users based on their earnings, fostering friendly competition and motivation. It gamifies the process, turning infrastructure improvement into an engaging challenge.

It not only recognizes top contributors but also encourages active participation in enhancing city environments, with users earning significant compensation.

Weather constraints

The app is intended to be used during the day from May to October, as it gets darker in Finland during the other months. To identify issues, images and videos must be of high quality and taken in daylight. Missions may be postponed in the case of rain.

Dashboard

Admins can monitor missions, create new ones, review images and videos, and approve or reject them. They can also dynamically adjust mission parameters and requirements based on real-time data and feedback, like if a mission needs to be postponed due to rain.

Impact

In Tampere, Finland, a remarkable feat was accomplished in just 24 hours. Over 20,000 pictures of manhole covers were collected by enthusiastic users of a mobile app. These images will help improve city infrastructure and provide useful data to city officials.

Additionaly, in just a few hours, users on bikes mapped over 1,700 kilometers of bike paths across Finland. For every kilometer cycled, users could earn approximately 2€ making it an attractive proposition for cycling enthusiasts looking to earn some extra cash while contributing to an important cause.
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The app's success not only highlights the power of technology but also demonstrates how collaboration between technology and the community can lead to impactful outcomes.

Key learnings

When designing non-standard products like this, it is essential to involve developers from the very beginning. They should be included in the kick-off meetings or workshops where feature inventory is discussed, to ensure that all requirements and technical feasibility are considered.
Some of the features that were initially designed had to be reworked after developer’s feedback. To avoid such issues, it may be better to consult developers during the wireframe phase, after designing each flow. This can help ensure that the final product is both functional and feasible.

Data collection through crowdsourcing

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