The "Three-Legged Stool": Designing for Equitable City, Community, and Research Partnerships in Urban Environmental Sensing

Urban environmental monitoring campaigns depend on expertise from city agencies, residents, and researchers. Deployment efforts rarely include all three stakeholders, typically leading to initiatives that struggle to produce credible, actionable data. We describe the implementation of a large-scale, long-term air quality sensing network in Chicago Illinois; detail stakeholder interviews and meetings; and present three interfaces—–a website accessible via in-situ QR codes, APIs, and a mobile, mixed-media experience. We show how a collaborative approach created a more equitable sensor distribution compared to crowdsourced or regulatory designs. We highlight shared goals of education, engagement, and empowerment despite the diversity of tool and analytics needs across stakeholder groups. Reflecting on our work, we develop a “three-legged stool” framework representing the criticality of balanced participation from three key stakeholder groups—city, community, and research—in deploying novel urban technologies. This approach can help HCI researchers facilitate more democratic technology deployments in urban spaces.