Crowdsourcing Happiness to Create Better Living Spaces
On the surface, a UK crowdsourcing initiative into happiness may seem a frivolous exercise that raises a wry smile, but actually there could be some real-life enhancing benefits to it.
Urbangems is a website that is asking members of the public to compare photographs of two views from London and to assess which one best represents happiness, beauty and quiet. The data will be used to rate and rank happy places which could feed into urban design and planning.
When users visit the site they are presented with two street views side-by-side and they have to vote on which one is the more beautiful, happier or quieter. They are also invited to guess the percentage of other users who share the same points of view.
Hot or Not?
The project is being run by researchers from Cambridge University and they hope the data will answer such questions as 1) why are some areas seen as more beautiful than others? 2) What is it about these areas that are so appealing? 3) What are the most common visual cues in the pictures that make them attractive?
Researchers are using the best quality pictures they can find from services such as Google’s StreetView as they’re concerned that clarity may influence users’ perceptions. At the moment the website is just focused on London neighborhoods and public spaces.
The long-term plan is for the answers to inform urban planners and social scientists about why some places are perceived as more desirable than others. Ultimately, this could give people a bigger say in how they want their areas to be.
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