In this paper we examine ways to make data more meaningful and useful for citizens in participatory sensing. Participatory sensing has evolved as a digitally enabled grassroots approach to data collection for citizens with shared concerns. However, citizens often struggle to understand data in relation to their daily lives, and use them effectively. This paper presents a qualitative study on the development of a novel approach to Community Level Indicators (CLIs) during two participatory sensing projects focused on noise pollution. It investigates how CLIs can provide an infrastructure to address challenges in participatory sensing, specifically, making data meaningful and useful for non-experts. Furthermore, we consider how this approach moves towards an ambition of achieving change and impact through participatory sensing and discuss the challenges in this way of working and provide recommendations for future use of CLIs.

Citizen sensing is an approach that develops and uses lightweight technologies with local communities to collect, share and act upon data. In doing so it enables them to become more aware of how they can tackle local issues. We report here on the development and uptake of the 'City- Commons Framework for Citizen Sensing', a conceptual model that builds on Participatory Action Research with the aim of playing an integrating role: outlining the processes and mechanisms for ensuring sensing technologies are co-designed by citizens to address their concerns. At the heart of the framework is the idea of a city commons: a pool of community-managed resources. We discuss how the framework was used by communities in Bristol to measure and monitor the problem of damp housing.

Eye contact is crucial to shared encounters in public spaces. However, most urban technologies that aim to foster social interaction' attention towards the device rather than to those with whom the encounter is shared. We present the design and evaluation of the Jokebox, a lightweight technology that requires two passers-by to coordinate actions to hear a joke. In three in the wild studies at different locations we found that our design supported micro-level coordination in a consistent manner: by encouraging people to make eye contact and by using audible jokes, users engaged in interactions that often led to further conversation and laughter. We describe how opportunities for macro-level coordination were key to the success of the installation, but varied by context. Finally, we present design implications for considering both the micro and macro levels of social coordination.

HCI projects are increasingly evaluating technologies in the wild, which typically involves working with communities over extended periods, often with the goal of effecting sustainable change. However, there are few descriptions of projects that have been successful in the long-term. In this paper we investigate what factors are important for developing long lasting community ICT interventions. We do this by analysing a successful action research project and provide five recommendations for facilitating sustained community engagement. CrowdMemo aimed to preserve local heritage in a town in rural Argentina and the project was set up so that it could be continued by the community once researchers had left. Participants created videos about personal memories of the town and over 600 people attended the premiere where they were first screened. The impact has not just been short-term and there has been sustained engagement with the project by stakeholders in the town and wider region: the local school integrated digital storytelling into its curriculum; the approach has been adopted by two nearby towns; and the project has influenced regional government educational policy.