As we move toward 2025, online public engagement is continuing to evolve rapidly. Here are two trends that we anticipate will shape digital public engagement in the year ahead.

Earlier this week, the City of Brooks Alberta launched their new online public engagement platform. Brooks launched the new platform with their annual budget survey. This new platform, using 76engage, replaces the linear survey they have used in the past and provides an intuitive web experience for community members to engage with their municipal government.

The non-linear design of this years budget survey allows for participants to move through the engagement initiative at their own pace in an order that makes the most sense to them. Instead of working their way through topics they are not interested in, community members can jump right to the departments they care about most. This design structure encourages more meaningful engagement.


The new engagement platform is fully responsive allowing for people to provide input on the go, using smartphones and tablets.

Keep an eye out for more engagement opportunities from the City of Brooks Alberta and to see how they utilize their new engagement platform!

What should you do? Require that users register to participate or allow anonymous submissions? That is the question. In traditional online community applications, systems ask users to log in or register upfront in order to participate. As we’ve seen, asking users to register before they interact, deters some users from participating. So you end up with fewer submissions. But you don’t have to go all the way to allowing anonymous submissions. There’s a better way to do this.