CONSTITUTE
Masters Thesis Project
5 Months
Dublin, Ireland/Remote
PROJECT SUMMARY |
My Challenge
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Key Findings
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My Methods
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My Design SolutionCONSTITUTE is a platform for local municipalities to host the live streams of their publicly accessible meetings, designed with the needs of their constituents at the forefront. CONSTITUTE helps citizens engage with city topics that matter to them most and allow constituents to express their feelings and opinions over the course of a meeting, remotely.
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Actionable Next StepsIn addition to a "to do" list of continuing design refinements and iterations, usability testing also provided an important list of potential behavioral impacts that should be investigated through testing of CONSTITUTE in a live setting, chief among them:
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My Process
Generative Research, Problem and User Definition
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To address the brief I had set for myself, I began with primary research including 7 interviews with government employees, non-profit employees, citizen activists, and "average citizens, and a user survey distributed both directly and via Facebook and secondary research activities including a literature review, environmental scan, and best practices review.
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A common theme I heard throughout the research was the power and importance of citizens being able to attend local public meetings in person, where they can express their perspectives, opinions, and needs to their elected officials face-to-face.
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…a bunch of like senior citizens…were all asking the Council to move [a bus stop] a block. It was not a controversial ask that they were making. But it was clear that…an organization or an individual had worked to organize everybody to come together...everybody came piling in together. There weren't that many [people in the room],… but then this group came in...And then everybody was sharing the general same message. So it was like 50 elderly folks and after like the 40th person, [the council members] were like, "We got you". – Interview 5, Citizen Activist |
“It’s very difficult to get citizens involved by Zoom,” said [Montgomery Co, MD Budget Director Richard] Madaleno…“In prior years, the budget hearings were full of teachers, parents, etc. wearing T-shirts, holding signs. Now all of that has disappeared. You can sit at home and watch people deliberate, but that’s not the in-person aspect that’s critical to democracy. It’s one-way, and it’s more true on the local level.” - Richard Madaleno, The Atlantic |
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Co-Creation Workshop and Experience Prototyping
At different points the process, I conducted a series of interactive sessions with potential users to get a sense of how people were experiencing the current state, and how they might experience my proposed design solution. “When we were in that meeting [with staff about reopening plans] it we felt like we were participants... but this [watching a Council meeting] feels a bit like you’re watching a TV show,…watching people doing their job and there just happens to be a camera in the corner.” - Participant 11
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Archetypes, Journey Mapping, Scenario and Storyboarding
I developed the research into actionable artifacts that would help guide the design and testing of concepts in a user-focused direction. I developed personas for the kinds of citizens that traditionally were (and were not) attending these meetings, mapped out the journey of what it is like to dial into and actually watch one of these meetings online, and storyboarding some scenarios for recurring use of a platform that would reimagine this journey. |
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Sketching, User Flows, and Wireframing
Once testing and experimenting helped me decide on the most applicable concept direction, I began sketching out actual screens, thinking through the user flows of those screens, and wireframing those sketches and flows in Balsamiq. I began thinking of this as a mobile-first project, but early user testing and project timelines suggested that it would be more efficient to design it as a web platform.
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Usability Testing and Iterative Prototyping to Develop the Design |
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I conducted usability testing with 5 potential users representing civilian and government segments on a high fidelity prototype, which led to progressive and iterative updates of the design. Some of the testing was task-based, especially in the initial screens, where I was looking at whether users could use the interface to locate and select specific information related to upcoming meetings. My testing delved deeper into both the impressions and use of the "audience sentiment" feature, as the most novel and "emotional" part of the design. The most significant interactions to the design ended up being to that feature.
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“If I was there with [a group], and I was like “well I actually think this is good,” if I saw everybody else in my group was saying “no I disagree”, I might be less inclined to share my opinion, like “well, we’re trying to work as a block” - Participant 10 Example of iterative development of the "audience panel" design element.
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Final Concept and Prototype
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The final concept and design for CONSTITUE seeks to combine the most beneficial qualities of attending a city council meeting online and via live stream into an interactive online meeting platform. To date, CONSTITUTE would be the first platform conceived specifically for hosting public meetings at the local government level, particularly with the engagement of constituents in mind.
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