Streetside

Government Microsite Concept
Project Overview
Streetside offers residents control with what COVID-19 information they receive.

Our brief was to design a better experience for residents to access information about their local government, our research with the pandemic top of mind showed residents wanted non-sensationalized information that only affected their lives.

On a team of 3, I crafted an organized system of business and update solutions while leading the team through diverse choices.
Project Focus
  • How to be a useful source of information after COVID-19
  • Bridge the gap between the city of Seattle being trusted but not a usable source of information
  • What information do people need to feel informed and supported?

The Challenge

Problem statement

Residents need easy access to crisis information that affects them during this pandemic.

Residents want fast and reliable information they can control

Find information from social media and news outlets first and often follow up by seeking official sources
Users want COVID-19 information to come from trustworthy sources.
The City of Seattle is believed to be a trust-worthy source of information
Users want to control the information they receive - opinions and overwhelming stories are not what they need.
City government websites can be cluttered and overwhelming
Most users are finding some level of misinformation from social media and news outlets
Seattle residents trust the city of Seattle government and find sensational news overwhelming
“You know, I don't want to read… this dying mother had to say goodbye to her children by ‘walkie talkie.’ That's not constructive for me right now.”
-Casey, Age 25
Seattle residents use social media to quickly get news and then research on trusted sites
“[Social media] is like a notification. It says “hey, something happened” and then I move on to another news source to look into it.”
-Nathan, Age 29

The Solution

A microsite containing pandemic related updates that affects residents day to day lives.

Our solutions were created to answer two prompts:

  • Design one source for COVID-19 information
  • Design information people want to see

Crisis Comics

Neighbourhood

Profile Builder

COVID-19 Toolbox

Provides easy to access to updates in a novel way from the government and city in a short drawn medium.
Focused on just where the users lives. Information and updates pertaining to a particular area of interest.
Offers minute control over information from the local government. Customize information to be user relevant.
Easy crisis information for every day concerns. Contain basic information needed to be safe and prepared.

Evaluating after two iterations based on critical categories

Based on emergent categories from a SWOT analysis. The neighbourhood concept was deemed the strongest solution.
Signing up for notifications on the initial prototype.

The Process

Testing confirmed users want information they control

Assumptions
  • Users trust the city of Seattle
  • Users only want local information
  • Users want to support local businesses
  • Users want notifications

Users wanted more business related information

Crisis Specific Info

Users wanted to see what businesses were doing in response to COVID-19 and noted the initial design was missing a business email

Call to Action

Users found the colors used to indicate status insufficient

Map

Users liked navigating to their neighbourhood via a map

Notification Sign Up

Users wanted subscribing to notifications to be more obvious
"It's kind of all in one place and that's really nice. You get business specific information, and you get city announcements. That's very convenient."
- Kate, 49

Final design adjustment

Home page
  1. Added interaction as users expected content connected to city message - provided collected important info
  2. Notification sign up addition on front page - fast access to choosing info users wants
  3. Create clear distinction between businesses open and businesses to support via social media portals - clearer language for user access to info about businesses
Detailed business page
  1. Each category is it’s own color - organizes a lot of business info
  2. Added space for business profile to add their precautions in response to COVID-19 - providing business response to give users reassurance on what the business is doing for them
  3. Singled out website link for direct business access - faster access to business website
  4. Removed suggestion as this interaction confused users
Update and notification page
  1. Moved notification sign up to follow the usual pattern after content - matching user expectations
  2. Filter and Sort buttons adjusted for interaction clarification
  3. Limit content listed for updates and allow users to search for more
  4. Notification clarity for what the user should input - showing what input is necessary for the user to provide
Sign up for notification page
  1. Define city wide updates
  2. Users opt in for city wide or not
  3. Distinction between city wide updates and local neighborhood updates
  4. Allow users to sign up for the neighborhoods they are interested in
  5. Users can sign up for both email and text at the same time
  6. Call to action colors clear

Developer Handoff

Annotating wireframes ensuring a smooth hand off to UI and future developers

Below are selected frames of our COVID-19 basics relevant to Seattle residents, and the "Essential Guide" which offers open businesses

Annotating the COVID-19 information wireframe to properly explain each tap interaction
To layer a deep understanding of all the design intentions within the mobile experience

Reflection

Interesting insights

  1. It was interesting that users wanted the application to have social aspects such as wanting to connect with friends for online classes or be able to share a favorite's list with an out of town visitor. It was an interesting twist to want to co-opt it as a travel guide.
  2. My biggest concern was how to maintain this database, I had a large concern that it would just immediately fall out of date without government mandates for businesses to update and maintain their information as businesses have so many portals they already need to keep track of. However as this was an exploration the team decided our solution was a good exploration.

What I would do differently next time

Explore deeply what information users prioritized for their day to day. Our application gathered all the information instead of specializing. I would have been interested to see what kind of specialized application users would want during a crisis time.
Next
ritalouisefriendly@gmail.com
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