Design and deployment of community systems: reflections on the Campiello experience

Abstract

The last decade has witnessed a growing interest in what technology can do to sustain communities. Within the Campiello project innovative information technologies have been adopted to support the dynamic exchange of experiences among people living in cities with high levels of tourism, in this way reducing the progressive diminishing of identity suffered by the local communities of these cities. The system developed has been used, for an experimental period, in a neighborhood of Venice, Italy. In the paper, we reflect on the whole Campiello experience, considering all its development phases. These reflections are organized as a set of issues that require attention, respectively, in the design and deployment of community systems, illustrated with examples from Campiello. We believe that due to the relative novelty of community systems, this type of reflection is important to inform the design of future systems such that they better fulfill their objectives and become an integral part of community practices.