How can extended reality (AR and VR) make public participation in urban planning more accessible, more meaningful, and more engaging? A new article by Jonas Fegert and Jella Pfeiffer has been published in the European Journal of Information Systems (EJIS).

 Across three Design Science Research cycles and three empirical studies, the authors developed and evaluated an immersive e-participation application drawing on augmented and virtual reality. Citizens can use it to explore planned construction projects in situ, contribute their own suggestions, and discuss them with others. The work is firmly grounded in participation theory: the findings show that deeper levels of participation are associated with greater enjoyment, familiarity with the planning object, and confidence in decision-making. Beyond the artifact itself, the paper derives transferable design principles for aligning immersive technologies with different levels of participation.
 

The article is available open access: https://doi.org/10.1080/0960085X.2026.2721630