Digitally Supported Participation Processes and Tools to Promote Gender-Responsive Public Spaces

Abstract

Planning is faced with the challenge of designing public open spaces that meet the diverse needs of everyday life. Gender-sensitive planning can facilitate the development of gender-responsive public spaces by considering the specific needs of different groups. Innovative digital tools are available for collecting and analysing the use of open spaces. However, most of these tools do not integrate group-specific requirements. This article explores what such integration might entail in terms of tool use and the design of the participatory process. It describes the typical planning phases and provides an overview of digital tools classified according to the intensity levels of participation. The application of the tools is then described based on two use cases. The research findings indicate that the primary advantage of using digital tools is the multiple use of the gender-disaggregated data generated. To fully exploit the benefits of digitally supported participation processes, it is necessary to develop seamless tool chains that allow for differentiated data collection and processing.