Designing a geographic visual information system (GVIS) to support participation in urban planning

Zhang, X

Abstract

The growth of the international movement to involve the public in urban planning
urges us to find new ways to achieve this. Recent studies have identified
information communication technologies (ICT) as a mechanism to support such
movement. It has been postulated that integrating geographic information system
(GIS), virtual reality (VR) and Internet technologies will facilitate greater
participation in planning activity and therefore strengthen and democratise the
process. This is a growing area of research. There is, however, concern that a lack
of a theoretical basis for these studies might undermine their success and hamper
the widespread adoption of GIS-VR combination (GVIS).
This thesis presents a theoretical framework based on the Learning System Theory
(LST). ICT technologies are then assessed according to the framework. In the
light of the assessmenta, prototype has been designed and developed based on a
local urban regeneration project in Salford, UK. The prototype is then evaluated
through two phases, namely formative evaluation and summative evaluation, to
test the feasibility of the framework. The formative evaluation was focused on
evaluating the functionality of the prototype system. In this case, evaluators were
experts in IT or urban planning. The summative evaluation focused on testing the
value of the prototype for different stakeholder groups of the urban regeneration
project from local residents to planning officers.
The findings from this research indicated that better visualization could help
people in understanding planning issues and communicate their visions to others.
The interactivity functions could further support interaction among users and the
analysis of information. Moreover, the results indicated that the learning system
theory could be used as a framework in looking at how GVIS could be developed
in order to support public participation in urban planning.

Citation

Zhang, X. Designing a geographic visual information system (GVIS) to support participation in urban planning. (Thesis). University of Salford, UK

• Thesis Type: Thesis
• Deposit Date: Jul 1, 2009
• Publicly Available Date: Jul 1, 2009
• Additional Information: Additional Information : PhD supervisors: Mr. Andy Hamilton and Dr. Nigel Trodd
• Award Date: May 1, 2004