Left untouched, the input stays neutral. No number is shown or asked for.
Filled in from your location and updated as you move. Correct it if it is not right.
Helps read your observation: “uneven” means something else in a wheelchair. Shown with the observation, never with your name.
Your profile lets you record observations and earn badges. Other people only see your observations, never your profile.
Only you and research moderators see it, unless you choose to show it on the leaderboard.
🔒 These answers help researchers see whose experiences are represented. They are only seen by moderators, never shown on the map or to other users. Skip any question.
Your observations stay on the map without any link to you if you delete your profile.
Points reward observations that make the map more useful, not how many you post.
Levels rise with your confirmed points. Each week brings a new challenge (+20 once it is done), a weekly leaderboard that starts over on Monday, and a streak for every week in a row with at least one observation. Points stay pending for 24 hours before they count. Up to 15 observations a day earn points. Deleting an observation cancels its points. If several people report an observation, its pending points are on hold until a moderator decides; if a moderator removes it, its points are cancelled.
A library, a class or a community group can give you a team code. Your points also count for your team.
What happened with your observations and in your city.
What people told us about their city. Anonymous: no names, no profiles.
Record. Tap Record Observation. Build one perceptual sentence: how you are experiencing the place, what you notice, and how you would describe it. Words that fit your first answer are proposed first; search for others, or propose a new word. Then set the appreciation gradient (Positive, Mixed, Neutral, Mixed, Negative) and adjust the pin within 100 m of where you are.
The time and date are added automatically from the moment you start recording, with the season and time of day.
Aggregate. Zoom in for individual inputs, out for clusters, and farther out for a territorial overview. Mixed, positive and negative inputs stay separate; nothing is averaged into one score.
Play. Create a player profile to record observations, collect badges and earn points. Points reward useful observations: places nobody has described yet, coming back at another time, a sense you have not used. Repeating the same spot earns less each time, and points stay pending for a day.
Check. Near someone else’s observation, open it and answer: I notice this too, I notice it, but feel differently, or I don’t notice this. Answers come only from people on site and show how shared an experience is.
🎯 City questions. The city can ask about a place for a few weeks. Recording inside the area answers it.
🏛️ Follow-up. Observations can show what the city did: Seen, Being studied, Change planned, Changed. You are told when one of yours is updated.
Drafts and changes. Closing the recorder keeps your observation as a draft for 2 hours. You can edit or delete your observations from their details; the place and time can’t change, because they were checked on site.
Context. The weather is added automatically: your approximate area (about 1 km) is sent to Open-Meteo to look it up. You can also say how you are getting around (on foot, wheelchair, stroller…); it is shown with the observation, never with your name.
Photo and place. Each observation needs one photo of what you noticed, taken on site (📸 at step 5, right after the appreciation, or with the phone’s camera app), and a place name, filled in automatically from your location (OpenStreetMap) and updated as you move. The photo is saved without its hidden location data and is seen only by you and the research moderators, unless a moderator makes it public. Avoid faces and licence plates.
Privacy. Only the photo you take is saved; the live camera is never recorded. Your device position is used only for the proximity check, then discarded. On the map, observations appear without any name or avatar. Your nickname and optional answers about you are only visible to research moderators. No city service is notified.
🗳️ City halls and 🏛️ legislatures appear in every province and territory, with a link to where you can have your say (public consultations, engagement websites, visits). The Your city card shows them for the area on the map, with what the city did about observations there.
Open data. Anyone can download the observations (GeoJSON or CSV, at the bottom of the side panel). They contain what the map shows: places, words, appreciation, notes, situations and city follow-ups, never names, profiles or photos.
📚 🌳 🖼️ 🤝 Local places mark organizations with information and links, wherever you are in Canada. The icon says what kind of place it is (library, park, museum, heritage, community group, market…). Gold-ringed icons were checked by the research team; icons with a dashed ring are found automatically with Esri place search and OpenStreetMap (libraries, community and arts centres, museums, galleries, heritage sites, parks and community groups that list a website). To find them, the area shown on the map is sent to those services.
Moderators: open the moderator view.
The lexicon is a prototype and will change with testing. Proposed words are marked ✳️ until reviewed.
Your position is only used to check you are on site, then discarded. It is never shown to others.