Photos courtesy of PHS
My Role
Lead Designer
Product
Responsive Web App
My Contributions
Design Leadership
Strategy
Research
Design
Prototyping & Testing
Challenge
In many cities in the US, gun violence traumatizes neighborhoods. City agencies, organizations, and community groups are hungry for solutions that are proven to reduce violence.
There is a growing body of research finding that cleaning and greening vacant lots makes a significant psychological impact on people in the neighborhood, reducing gun violence by around 29 percent.
Problems
In Philadelphia community groups, organizations, and city agencies are all launching initiatives to clean and green lots, however, they find can find the process very difficult.
Finding lots that would make a significant difference
Finding data on lots including who owns them
Getting legal access to lots
Understanding what are appropriate improvements.
Initiative Goals
A volunteer group of city planners, designers, and developers involved with Code for Philly was formed to aid these groups.
Create a tool that brings together all the publicly available data about vacant lots.
Make this data accessible to community groups, organizations, and city agencies.
Empower them to make smart strategic choices of how to spend their limited resources to maximize their impact.
Research
There was a lot to take on with this project. It was critical to partner with experts, learn from other systems, and gain educational partners.
Onsite Interviews. I joined community clean-ups talking to the organizers.
User Interviews. We interviewed representative users from our target users, community groups, non-profit organizations, and city agencies.
Similar Initiatives. Other cities have very successfully launched similar projects including Detroit.
Workflow Diagraming. How to acquire lots is often a huge barrier for community groups. Based on our knowledge of city planning and workings, we build out a workflow to guide users to the best way to acquire vacant lots based on lot data.
Design
With all our learnings, we identified a core set of user needs and began the design process.
Thinking clearly about the user and our initiative goals, I created wireframes with a smooth user flow. It takes them through finding a property on a map, searching and filtering to match their goals, suggesting way to acquire it, and ways to transform it.
Getting feedback from experts in the area, I began to piece together a cohesive process that we could guide people through, providing guidance, tips, and additional resources in each phase.
Find a Vacant Property
Get Access to the Property
Transform the Property
I created a brand for Clean & Green Philly that supported the vision of the tool, to be an engaging, positive, and trustworthy tool to the diverse groups we hope to empower. This included a typeface, colors, logo, and design elements.
We met with users from our target users, community groups, organizations, and government agencies, and showed them the prototype. We gained valuable feedback and revised and refined the prototype.
Development
With the prototype tested and validated with users, we began development. We partnered with Code for Philly, a community of civic-minded technologists, to recruit developers to help.
I supported the development team with planning, prioritization, and project management.
The project is now live and we are gearing up for a series of workshops with community groups.