Neighborly App
My Role
UX/UI Design
Industry
Tactical Urbansim
Duration
3 weeks
Tools
Figma, Figjam, Google suite
Stage 1. Discovery
To truly understand these challenges and develop a solution, it's important to look at the tools already available in the market.
After conducting a competitive analysis, we identified a key gap:
A missing tool that helps provide feedback loop for better project experience
and the missing elements in tactical urbans expeiences :
Community Engagement
Real-Time Interaction
Mobile responsiveness
Utilized affinity mapping to synthesize insights from four user interviews with subject matter experts involved in urban development & design
Environmentalist
Civil engineer
Design researcher
Urban planner
We synthesized our results using affinity mapping and gained the following insights:
Desired Collaborator Traits
How to Manage Projects
How to Acquire Resources
Desired Platform Features
Our research uncovered a common challenge faced by community members in tactical urbanism:
Community members interested in tactical urbanism are struggling to sustain projects due to inadequate tools for integrated reporting, simple project tracking, collaboration and resources, resulting in missed opportunities for partnership and impact.
Ideation
how might we?
Create a user-friendly reporting system
Provide project management tools
Enhance community engagement
To address the challenges uncovered in our research, we prioritize the following features:
REPORT & SUCCESS STORIES
BUY-IN & COLLABORATION
PROJECT TRACKING
show sketches
The persona we’ve developed is based on our research findings, but it’s also inspired by real stories shared during interviews, like the one in the video.
share persona
share hifi frames
As part of our usability testing, we gathered valuable insights that highlighted the real-world experiences of users interacting with the platform.
What Typically Worked Well
“I can report easily like citizen app for reporting crimes in Seattle”
“The map was locked to my location and responsive, which made it feel incredibly intuitive and useful right on the spot”
“I really appreciate the report feature—it stood out to me and is exactly what I needed in my neighborhood “
Opportunities
Challenges Noticed
Confusion around the "report/submit" steps: Users found the process of submitting reports unclear, leading to uncertainty about how to properly complete the action.
Unclear navigation to the message board: Participants struggled to find or navigate to the message board, making communication and collaboration more difficult.
Uncertainty with Categories: Users were unsure about which categories to choose when submitting reports, causing confusion and inefficiency in categorizing issues.
Report Submission
*Community discussion
*Direct Messaging
These were identified as high-priority areas, as they directly impacted user confidence and the core functionality of the platform. Other insights, while important, were less common and will be addressed in future updates.
Next Steps in UX Research & Design
I've gained a deeper understanding of the importance of feature prioritization in UX design and have enhanced my skills in refining solutions using the MOSCOW prioritization method.
This project has taught me that community-based initiatives flourish with ongoing feedback. The more insights I collect, the more effectively I can refine the design.
I’ll begin by conducting
System Usability Scale (SUS) survey on the current design to assess usability.
Contextual Inquiry
I’ll observe how volunteers and managers collaborate, uncovering workflow challenges and identifying areas where the platform can better support their teamwork.
Conduct Interviews with Volunteers and Managers
I’ll also interview both groups to understand their pain points and needs, using their feedback to design features that enhance collaboration and productivity.