Digital Trust for Places and Routines is a project that seeks to advance an open-source communication standard for digital technology that enables agency for people in the real world. We believe that by first enabling transparency and understanding, we can increase accountability and human agency so that there can be trust in digital technology.
For an overview of the open-source communication standard, and our five year vision of what could be possible if DTPR is widely adopted, see our website at dtpr.io
This project began as Designing for Digital Transparency in the Public Realm. In 2019, experts came together in cities around the world in co-design sessions to collaborate and prototype an initial set of open communication standards for digital transparency in the public realm. In 2020, this initial draft was refined through several cycles of online expert charrettes and small meetings, iterative prototype development, and longitudinal inclusive usability and concept testing.
These draft standards, as well as all the co-design activities and materials that generated them, are publicly and freely available for others to adopt, use, and build upon. Further development of these draft standards are currently being stewarded by Helpful Places and an emerging coalition of partners and collaborators.
We’re looking for partners who want to advance the use and adoption of these standards in the public realm. Please get in touch at dtpr@helpfulplaces.com.
There are four major components to DTPR - icons, a signage system, and a digital channel for communication - which together, help visualize and convey a taxonomy of key concepts.
You can download the latest set of the icon files and visual system from Github.
The design guide has what you need to know in order to actually create signs using the icons or add the icons to existing signage. This has not changed since the initial V1 release.
The taxonomy is the full set of definitions on which the icons are based. These definitions are also used in the prototype of the digital channel. The work-in-progress V3 draft of the taxonomy and the associated icons are managed in this repo here, which you can see displayed on the DTPR website here. Please note this is an active work in progress!
When you scan a QR code on a sign, it brings you to a webpage where you get more information. Here's the current prototype for the digital channel. Here’s the source code.
Helpful Places has developed a live version of this digital channel. You can see a demonstration of this app here.
In the course of developing the initial prototypes, we developed materials and a facilitation guide that was used to run our co-design sessions. All the materials are provided here so that anyone, anywhere, can take up these tools and use them to engage in this crucial topic. This is unchanged since V1.
The development of these design patterns and prototypes would not have been possible without the large number of contributors who invested their expertise and time in this project. They are listed here.
The Icons, Design Guide and Taxonomy for DTPR are licensed by the Digital Transparency in the Public Realm contributors under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0).
Portions of the DTPR Icons incorporate elements of, or are derived from, the Material icons. The Material icons are available under the Apache License 2.0.
The source code for the Digital Channel Prototype is licensed under Apache License 2.0.
Sidewalk Labs trademarks and other brand features within these works are not included in this license.
For the V2 release of DTPR, used in initial prototypes in Boston and before translation, please visit https://github.com/helpfulplaces/dtpr-v2
For the original V1 release of DTPR, please visit https://github.com/sidewalklabs/dtpr