
DIPAS_stories complements the Digital Participation System (DIPAS) and enables urban planning frameworks and planning projects to be communicated with the help of spatial, geodata-based stories. Storytelling as a method of knowledge transfer has been successfully practiced for many years, for example in the field of digital media. This method supports the interplay of interactive geodata and visually appealing media as well as the dialog between planners and the public. The development of DIPAS_stories was made possible by the Connected Urban Twins (CUT) cooperation project.
Application concept
With the completion of the DIPAS_stories development iteration in April 2023, Hamburg launched the beta version of the tool to test the possibilities of the storytelling methodology for informal citizen participation. In the first step, the tool was initially optimized for the digital data table (DIPAS_touchtable) and thus for use at events. The aim of the development is that the DIPAS_touchtable can be operated independently by everyone and made available without additional technical support, e.g. at participation events for citizens or in district offices.
Key functions
DIPAS_stories makes it possible to contextualize geodata-based specialist maps such as noise maps, digital development plans or 3D city models with texts, images and videos. All available stories are presented in an overview on the touch table interface. In addition, the title plus cover photo, a short description and the approximate reading time of each story are displayed. If you navigate to an individual story, the sidebar (story sidebar) shows the content of the story (see Fig. 1). These are divided into individual steps. The story can be read with a simple scroll or swipe movement. The arrow navigation can also be used to jump directly to the next step. The textual and visual content of each step corresponds to a specific map setting (zoom level, position and visible geodata layers). The map on the left-hand side therefore changes automatically as you navigate through the individual story steps. A circular progress bar shows where the reader is currently in the story. A table of contents can also be used to jump directly to individual steps. It is particularly valuable that the map can be used interactively. Readers can move the map, change the zoom level and switch geodata layers on and off at any time. When navigating further in the story sidebar, the map focus that is preset for the respective step is automatically resumed.
DIPAS_stories is a component of the DIPAS system and is already available as a beta version in the DIPAS Masterportal Addon on Open CoDE as open source software.
Piloting and further development
In order to test the new development in practice, the first pilot assignments took place in Hamburg and the partner cities of Leipzig and Munich in 2023 as part of the CUT project. The deployments were evaluated and the findings were incorporated into the further development of the tool. The aim is to gradually introduce DIPAS_stories into widespread use in Hamburg and, if necessary, in other municipalities and cities that use DIPAS. DIPAS_stories is continuously maintained and further developed by the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg as the manufacturer of DIPAS.
Background
The technical basis for DIPAS_stories was developed in the CUT project by the City Science Lab at HafenCity University Hamburg as open source software under the name “Data Narrator”. A complex process was launched in 2022 to make the functionalities of this tool usable in DIPAS procedures: First, the Data Narrator was set up in the Hamburg administration and extensively tested. This resulted in a catalog of requirements that was further refined together with the stakeholders (DIPAS user cities, users at procedure level, specialist control center for citizen participation in Hamburg, CUT partners). As part of the CUT project, initial product models (so-called mock-ups) for the presentation of the stories on the DIPAS_touchtable and for the story configuration in the DIPAS_backend were also created in collaboration with the City of Leipzig. These mock-ups were then further developed together with the software developers of the Hamburg State Office for Geoinformation and Surveying (LGV) and implemented between December 2022 and April 2023.