TAX DOLLARS AT WORK
INTERACTIVE CITIZEN MOBILE APP DESIGN
CASE STUDY
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CLIENT
Town Hall
Plymouth, Massachusetts
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ROLES
ux designer | product designer
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DESCRIPTION
iOS mobile app design
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PROJECT SUMMARY
interactive mobile app to report town needs
BACKGROUND
The town of Plymouth, Massachusetts includes a large portion of Plymouth County. The infrastructure is complex, including urban and rural settings. It is a rapidly growing area and has many diverse maintenance issues.
DEFINE THE PROBLEM
This case study begins with a problem question:
How might we more efficiently get public feedback
for Town Managers on potential new projects, improvements, and repairs?
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This HMW question framed the problem to solve. Starting with determining and understanding our target users, we analyzed competitors, developed personas, and determined user stories. This helped us understand the pain points and how to design an app to solve the problem at hand.
RESEARCH
I began my research by conducting user (or town resident) interviews. This provided a better insight for how people were currently communicating with the town and how the problem was being addressed.
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Then, I started to look at how other cities and towns were handling these types of requests for maintenance and repair. I thought of other communities as competition, since there was not any direct competition in this case. I found several cities with successful stories, and learned from their approach.
GETTING TO KNOW THE USERS
Several examples of a mobile digital solution to the problem accomplishing similar goals. What were the benefits? Could these requests be streamlined and easily prioritized to create a more efficiency?
1.) instill trust and transparency for public;
2.) lists of potential projects;
3.) record of repair and maintenance;
4.) staff time can be focused on the problems.
EMPATHIZE WITH TARGET PERSONA
I developed a target persona, by analyzing data collected in the user interviews. I wanted to be able to focus on the how this mobile app would solve the problem for residents.
User stories were compiled from the data collected. They proved to be beneficial to narrow down the key features to include.
USER FLOWS INFLUENCING
THE ARCHITECTURE
Now it was time to get some of those ideas on paper. Many concepts were evaluated within our team before a prototype was developed. It was helpful to get this early feedback, so we could organize ideas and prioritize the feature inclusion.
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How the features were to be implemented was determined through user flows, sketches, and low fidelity prototypes. My sketches included basic details for each mobile screen.
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SKETCHING
We decided that each user (resident or visitor) would first need to create a profile so they could follow the progress on their complaint and save their history. The prototype concentrated on how a report (or complaint) would be filed, recorded, assigned, and updated.
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A report begins with the "Key to Town Hall." From there, the user can select the type of complaint, enter the details, confirm their contact info, take a picture of the issue, and confirm the address on a map (using photo metadata).
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Minimal details keeps the report easy to manage, combine with other reports, and assign to the proper department to address. Additionally, the resident can see when the problem of this sort should be addressed, follow the progress, and maintain a database of history.
HIGH FIDELITY PROTOTYPE
High fidelity prototypes were tested and refined with resident, product manager, town officials, and SME (subject matter expert) feedback.
RESULTS
The app met all of the primary creative objectives and was well received by the town officials. Now, the next steps are to work closely with the developers and create a working app which can streamline the work and instill engagement with the community.