**1. Introduction**

Planning for resilience and enabling positive design outcomes requires combinatory methods of working with data, in order to assist decision-makers to develop evidence-based methodologies and easily communicated scenarios. To accomplish this, we need to bring together data and information sets from disparate and vastly divergent disciplines and sources. The impactful rise of technology in urban planning has allowed for the extensive integration of data analysis tools, which promote a better understanding of socioeconomic fluctuation, as well as the active involvement of users in the planning process. In this way, users can participate and impact the planning process toward outcomes, which are more appropriate to their needs [1]. Evaluating urban environments is not only important from the planners' perspective but also has larger implications for the residents themselves. This shifts our thinking toward democratic environments, where users engage designers by expressing their preferences on how an idea could become part of their lives. This chapter aims to contribute to the discourse on user involvement in design-oriented fields, in our case, urban planning, by analyzing two different approaches of participatory design. The first approach addresses user participation as a research method or an analysis tool and the second as an urban design method. The key aspect to both approaches is open data platforms, as they allow access to the intended audience, researcher, or average user. Both approaches are presented through example case studies that are analyzed and compared based on the type of user participation, amount of user involvement, and type of context they are applied to. The two case studies represent different stages of participatory design,

where the first focuses on the integration of human perspective in neighborhood evaluation and the other on active, contextualized user participation in placemaking and neighborhood reformation. Both processes address human perception as an effective means in capturing the dynamics of space, as well as a mean to drive the change itself. User participation is the agency upon which, local resilience is formed by balancing the power between stakeholders and community members. We support that user-centric approaches improve society well-being and user satisfaction, toward more democratic and sustainable urban environments.

## **2. Participatory design**

In order to improve policy-making and the health of communities, collaborations often extend beyond the level of academic research, to that of the user level. Recent research suggests that researchers create more innovative concepts when taking advantage of user input than working purely with existing data sets. Humans are positioned as the major contributors to changing environments [2]; therefore, human factor should be addressed and included when conceptualizing urban analysis methodologies. This approach has a political dimension of user empowerment and democratization, and it is called participatory design approach. Participatory approaches link together all stakeholders (e.g. employees, researchers, customers, citizens, end users), in an attempt to improve human well-being, user satisfaction, accessibility, sustainability, and livability. As participatory processes are more and more supported by information technology, this enables both sides, users, and researches to understand and collect diverse knowledge, for example, opinions, ideas, objectives, statements, etc.; however, it increases the complexity and the handling of information when it comes to decision-making. Regarding user participation, the possibilities of digitalization should be regarded as an opportunity to accompany the social transformation toward a digital society in the information age of the twenty-first century [3]. A participatory process involves the side of the researcher or organizer and the side of the participants. In this chapter, we present two different directions of the above relationship: indirect user participation and direct user participation. In the first case, the users seek no personal interest in the process; however, they state their opinion regarding a real matter, which is proven useful in understanding urban dynamics. This process involves two stages that depict different processes. The results are then combined in a series of maps. The second case is a deliberate process in which the interested party (citizens) is involved in the policy-making toward the satisfaction of their needs. The process involves the construction of a digital platform that is user driven. This approach builds upon participatory action research by moving beyond participants' involvement and producing solutions to problems rather than documenting the results as a resource database. Further stages may then focus on community brainstorming, modeling and prototyping, and implementation in community spaces.
