Today, Chicagoans can easily see how and where city services are being deployed, find early learning programs, learn of local incidents of foodborne illness, wait time estimates for popular public amenities, and enjoy other benefits of open government data -- thanks to the efforts of the Smart Chicago Collaborative.

It wasn't by accident that access to this data was made easy (and even fun). Nor was this success attributable solely to talented developers. The Collaborative has cultivated a community of paid civic user testers to make sure their civic apps meet the needs and expectations of Chicagoans -- an approach that can be emulated in other communities.

The Civic User Testing Group(CUTgroup) is a community of over 800 "regular Chicago residents" -- from all city 50 wards plus all 77 "community areas" -- who get paid to test civic apps.

Yes, paid. Applicants who are accepted into the program and fill out a user profile receive a $5 Visa gift card, plus $20 every time they test a civic app. Currently that funding comes from the Collaborative's operating budget. Why is this project worth precious operating funds? Because it ensures that people will actually want to use, and be able to effectively use, the civic apps that Collaborative developers build.

"This is absolutely a fundamental, elemental program that could exist in any community with civic hackers," said Dan O'Neil, executive director of the Smart Chicago Collaborative. "It's a great way for community foundations and other local funders to provide leadership in open government and civic engagement. Often local funders feel a bit behind the game -- but the CUTgroup approach plays to their strengths. This is about community, about people, and about engagement."

So far the Collaborative has conducted nine tests involving the CUTgroup. For each test, participating CUTgroup members gather for a few hours to do formal user testing and provide detailed, structured feedback designed to guide final development decisions. This includes testing on mobile devices as well as computers.

Publishing the complete results of every test (including downloadable spreadsheets where you can see every response from every participant) is key to preserving accountability and transparency for this process."

CUTgroup book outlines systematic approach

Merely paying residents to test civic apps isn't enough. You need a good system to manage this process, and incorporate this input into published civic apps. So next week the Collaborative will publish an online book describing the CUTgroup process in detail, to make it easy for other local civic engagement and open government projects to emulate their success.

Read or download The CUTgroup book

This free book will explain the rationale behind CUTgroup, the skills needed to implement the CUTgroup process, useful tools, examples and -- most importantly -- the methods that have proven effective for running civic user testing sessions.

"There's a reason why we're publishing this book now, to advocate for this particular structure," said O'Neil. "We're at a time in civic engagement (and technology and development in general) where you hear a lot talk about caring about users and people, and the promise of the internet to inform and engage communities. But a lot of it is baloney. You need actual methods for engaging with people. You need to think about it, have a plan, have systems in place. We think we have a pretty good system."

The biggest surprise of developing this process? "People are passionate about the CUTgroup," said O'Neil. "They really love coming to our user testing sessions and interacting. Much more than we expected."