Pocket Democracy - developing a user-friendly app for following local politics

Developing a user-friendly app for following local politics

There are people who think that politics is complicated. Especially local politics is unpopular amongst the public. In the Finnish municipal elections in April 2017, only 58.8 % of the people had a say concerning who gets to decide on important issues that affect their everyday life. We beli eve in bringing democracy to your pocket, by providing data that is easy to understand and follow. Our idea is to develop a tool that gives you information on local politics and the people that work for you. The tool includes the possibility to follow decision-makers and view their speeches, votes, and rate of participation. Check how politicians are funded and what promises they made. You can also follow topics or parties, make contact with politicians, receive notifications, and give feedback. We will apply a user-centered design approach, meaning that we will develop the functions of the tool by talking to the end-users and taking their goals into account. The project will be launched in Malax, Ostrobothnia and we think such a tool would make life easier for citizens, politicians, and municipalities in the region. That is, democracy would benefit from it.