NYC: Now You Choose
A mobile app that allows NYC residents to participate in the local budget allocation.
The Brief
In today’s political climate, a large percentage of Americans have expressed feeling a disconnection from federal, state and local government. However, just as many people think that the decline in trust can be turned around. Bridging the communication gap between the government and the public requires a solution that can be implemented into everyday life. Our challenge was to design an optimized experience for New York City residents to access information about their local government and its services.
We decided to build an app that augments NYC Council’s current participatory budgeting plan. The app allows residents to have a voice in how the local NYC government allocates its budget by proposing local projects, voting on projects, and partaking in conversation surrounding these projects. The goal of our product was to make the local government more transparent, participatory and collaborative.
2. The Overview
Team
Pari Patel
Danaca Zhang
Amanda Palomino
Lauren Chang
Timeline
5 Weeks
Skills
Client Facilitation
User Research
Concept Testing
Wireframing
Rapid Prototyping
User Testing
Interaction Design
Tools
Sketch
Axure
3. The Research
Domain Research & Competitive Analysis
We first inspected where NYC residents were currently finding government-related information. Then we sought to understand why these platforms were not effective in connecting the public with the local government.
We sought to gain a better understanding of what competitors were doing well, gauge how easy it was to understand the information and data on the sites, find inspiration for top features and functions, and identify holes in the market that we could potentially fill. After studying the sites, we pinpointed that the information available to the public broadly fell into three categories:
Outdated
Boring layouts, information isn’t updated
Lacking Order
No clear path, navigation is a nightmare
Info Overload
Impossible to find info you’re looking for
Many of the websites touched on common points: budget information, current events, contacting government officials. We realized that although these are interconnected, there is no platform on the market that streamlines these topics.
User Interviews
Next, we spoke to subject matter experts (SMEs) and users that we carefully sourced. We wanted to find pain points of users dealing with government websites and discover what solutions they needed. After interviewing 5 SMEs and 4 users, we confirmed that there is a general lack of awareness and negative stigma surrounding local government spending.
“So it’s good to know how your local government I mean, honestly, obviously, it all comes back to taxes all the time, where, how is your local government funded? What are they doing with it? What projects are you seeing? And do you feel that they are doing a good job? And then if they’re not, you know, how do you contact the people who are controlling this stuff?”
“Every hour I spend trying to figure out something on the government website is an hour I don’t spend doing other things that grow my business. It has a cost.”
“I feel like what prevents me from learning more about the government is that there are just so many articles that I don’t care about…like, why bother?”
4. The Persona
Based on our interviews, we created the above persona of an NYC resident who represents our target user.
In this situation, we can focus on his pain points to identify opportunities to help solve his dilemma.
Problem Statement
The politically unengaged New Yorker needs a direct way to voice their informed opinion on local budget spending in order to harness their power as a stakeholder and improve current conditions in their community/neighborhood.
5. Ideation Phase
We drew up some rapid sketches to brainstorm ideas of what our product could look like. In the end, we weighed our 4 divergent concepts and tested them to analyze which features were working best.
Concept 1:
A mobile app that educates users on past success stories of people participating in the participatory budget. Displays budget graphics and basic information on NYC budget. Allows users to check and vote for existing government projects nearby and to propose new projects.
What users thought:
Users liked that they can see an overview of what this year's fiscal year budget looks like, and that the app provides useful information to regular citizens who may not have specialized knowledge into these things. However, they did not understand the point of success stories. What does the voting do? Does it actually make a difference?
Concept 3:
A mobile app that allows users to find district channel based on resident address. Allows users to communicate with others in same community, view project progress, and understand project details.
What users thought:
Users liked streamlined project information and project timelines. However, they did not like inputting personal information and were unclear about how well local government officials can monitor these discussions.
Concept 2:
A website that allows users to search for projects by area and view project descriptions. Allows users to become a "stakeholder" or "invest" virtual coins in a project. Allows users to focus attention on projects they are most passionate about.
What users thought:
Users liked the structure of the website and interactive aspect of the coins. However, they were overwhelmed by the amount of text on screens. They were also confused about what it means to be a stakeholder and how the coin system works.
Concept 4:
A mobile app that allows users to tune into their community's budget meeting and watch it live. Comments made by other users pop up below the video. An "Ask" button is available for users to click and ask a question to be answered at meeting. Polls are available for more engagement from online users.
What users thought:
Users liked that people can participate no matter where they are and that interactions are easy. However, they are confused about location/participation rules, and if trolls were able to enter the conversations.
6. Funneling Down
We mapped the features that our users found useful on a priority matrix. We needed a solution that provided high value solutions at low effort cost.
In the end, we established four main solutions to work into our final product that allowed us to
The Final Concept
A location-based, mobile app that allows local New York City residents propose and vote on project ideas for the upcoming fiscal year Participatory Budgeting project. It motivates and empowers people to make informed decisions and come together as a community to decide how their tax money should be spent.
8. Wireframing & Prototyping
Mid-fidelity UI kit for our wireframes, which we built in Sketch and then prototyped in Axure.
Onboarding
Onboarding screens give the user an overview of the app and its functions. We wanted to grab our users’ attention right away and show them how participatory budgeting works, how it’s applicable to their lives, and how they can be directly involved in the process within just a few minutes.
3. Support & Discuss Projects
Users can “support” and start discussions under proposed projects. We wanted to create a space where users can feel heard and harness their power as a stakeholder in the community.
2. Proposing Projects
Since this is the main feature of our app, we wanted to simplify the process of proposing a project. The app locates the user, gives them category options, prompts to describe their project, and options to attach photos/videos that support their idea.
4. Events Calendar
Users can see upcoming events/meetings/community gatherings to stay updated on what is happening near them. By seeing the option to participate in these events, users can feel that they have the ability to make a direct impact in the community.
9. Usability Testing & Iterations
In our initial round of usability testing, we asked our users to complete 3 simple tasks and provide general feedback on the app. Four out of five of our users were able to complete all the tasks, but their feedback helped us understand which areas of our app needed to be reinforced.
We received questions such as, “how is the budget related to proposing a project?” and “what is the difference between me voicing my opinion on twitter and this app?” We quickly realized that we needed to bring clarity to the app’s purpose from the start.
In our final product, we added in a catchy line to draw the user’s attention and explain how they can make an impact in their community.
Initially, we had not incorporated a proper “supports” and discussion system. After receiving feedback, we realized this had to be a crucial part of the app.
10. What’s Next?
Given our timeframe, we conducted usability testing as robustly as we could. If given more time, we would have loved to incorporate an educational feature to help users learn more about local policies and governmental processes. We would have also included a notification feature to help keep users in the loop on the projects and their progression. Furthermore, we would have loved to conduct further rounds of usability testing to keep re-iterating our product.
My greatest takeaway from this project was learning the users’ mental model. Exploring their pain points and understanding the “why” of their frustrations in depth can uncover surprising solutions. Conceptualizing a variety of solutions in the team also proved to be an eye-opening activity. By brainstorming individually, we were able to cluster together new ideas and incorporate them into a product that represents a variety of perspectives.