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Small Town

 

Team

 

 

Jingwen Yang, Luisa Roubicek, Tirdad Kiamanesh, Andrew Bates

 

 

Instructor


Anijo Mathew,  Panteleimon Spagis ( 14 weeks workshop )

 

 

Overview of the project

 

 

More than ever it is crucial that communities and city service agencies engage with one another to increase trust, reduce inhibition, and ultimately make the community safer and better. There are several “non-critical” situations that require interacting with police and other public services outside of 911.

 

The project explored how technology interventions can bring back a neighborhood feeling to the big city where trust is built between local government and residents. Small Town is a service platform that increases awareness, transparency, and efficiency of the local government and allows two-way communication between residents and their local government. Over time, residents and aldermen can have a close relationship and work together to improve their community. 

 

Methods & Activities

 

  • Interview ( alderman, first responders, residents, business owners)

  • Trend Hunting

  • Precursor Research

  • Diagram Developing

  • Workflow Diagram 

  • Information Architecture

  • Service Blueprint

  • Value Web

  • Revenue Analysis

  • Business Canvass

  • Roadmap

  • Prototyping and Validation

 

 

My responsibilities

 

Design research, Diagram developing, Conduct interviews, Interview protocols, Workflow diagram, Storytelling, Sketching, Wireframe, UX Design, Prototyping (physical/digital).

“How can we improve trust between communities and first responders in non-critical situations in big cities like Chicago?”

 

- 311, lack of awareness 

 

Our interviews showed that many residents do not know about 311, they are familiar with 911, and they call there even in not critical situations. This issue is more common among students and temporary residents than locals. 

Also, the definition of the emergency and nonemergency situation is different between the system and the residents. 

Research insights

Research insights

- 311 is not efficient

 

According to Chicago data portal (from 2013 to 2016), Chicago 311 receives many requests every day mainly through calls and there is a high percentage of duplicated requests, which causes long waiting time for residents.

"I moved to States three years ago and relocated to Chicago two years ago, I have never heard of 311. I called 911 for my house burglary, and they redirected me to 311. "

Grad Student

- Community involvement 

 

We participated in a city hall meeting; a project was started in the neighborhood without consulting with the community. The construction company researched people who wanted to move into that new apartment, not on the current residents. 

 

Also, lack of communication between first responders and communities make them unfamiliar with the neighborhood and residents.

“I think that cops definitely should get back to community policing… letting them meet these people… you are not a blue-headed monster.”

James, 57, former CPD detective

- Mismatch in actions between city gov. and residents.

 

Citizens use their social networks for help or leverage the power of media to solve their problems. On the other hand, City of Chicago asks residents to call 311 for assistance with non-emergency situations. They do not have any system to aggregate data from social media. 

“I am aware of 311, but I never used it. I talk to my landlord if I have problems.”​

Ann, 20, student

“I called 311. They connected me to the street sanitation, that high school, etc. But there was no response. Then I called Channel 2; everyone immediately came out.”

Ton, 55, resident

"I Should know which ward I am in and who my alderman is"

Bates, 44, resident

- Wrong assumption about the system

 

Requests are handled at the city level while the local governments are responsible for taking care of the claims and respond to them. The system doesn’t have local level engagement although they are the people who can bring change. Also, there is no system to give feedback or communicate with the person who submitted the claim. 

"I am not quite as involved with the local level as I am more at the city level or at the state level (...) And see the minor changes in the neighborhood."

Chicago Resident

Both alderman and residents found there is little local level community engagement. The awareness about the alderman and their responsibilities are low, so few people look for alderman's help directly.

“There is less local level engagement, especially for new residents and younger generations ... People use social media only as a compliant platform. ”

 

"What I do is advocate for my residents to get the city to do it’s job.”

 

- Michele Smith, Alderman of 43rd Ward

 

* Alderman: The City of Chicago is divided into 50 legislative districts or wards. Each district is represented by an alderman who is elected by their constituency to serve a four-year term. 

SMALL TOWN CHICAGO


 

We do not live in Chicago.

We live in our neighborhood.

Small town

Opportunity space 

Opportunity space

SMALL TOWN CHICAGO

is a service platform that

  1. creates awareness

  2. aggregates data

  3. enables two-way communication

Scenario

Anchor 1

How does it work

Small Town increases awareness and transparency of local governments among residents through welcome package and neighborhood touchpoints. And it improves efficiency and performance for local governments and allows two-way communication between residents and their local government. 

How it works
Website demo

Create awareness

 

To create awareness we didn't limit ourselves to digital. Flyers are available in the public spaces such as libraries and post offices. Also, when new tenants sign contract with their landlord; they receive a welcoming letter from their alderman with necessary information and the dedicated hashtag to their ward. 

Data aggregation

 

The system aggregates data from different sources through social listening. It gets data from neighborhood networks on which residents post events, concerns, and campaigns as well as social media.It also gets city data from the Chicago data portal which has data from multiple service providers, for example, crime data from the police department.

Sentiment analysis

After getting post data and filtering, the system will cluster the relevant ones. Then the algorithm will analyze the sentiment of the posts, whether it is positive, neutral or negative. With that, we can get the overall sentiment of each case which helps with the decision making.

Data visualization geolocation

 

The geolocation of the requests and posts show on the website and mixed reality installation. When it combines with other data (e.g., traffic prediction), it starts to make sense and informs decision making.

Data visualization performance

 

Alderman can also track the performance, not only through the number of posts and sentiment but also the performance score. It is inspired by Boston city score, which gives each 311 service a score every day. For example, if graffiti is removed on time, the score will be 1. If less time is used, the score will go up.

Push post to different platforms with one click

On our platform, alderman can also track the performance, not only through number of posts and sentiment, but also the performance score. It is inspired by Boston city score, which gives each 311 service a score everyday. For example, if graffiti is removed on time, the score will be 1. If less time is used, the score will go up.

TRUST=

 

Awareness + Transparency + Communication + Performance

Validation

“What I love about what you just showed me is that you are posting that we are DOING something.”

- Alderman Smith

Validation

Value web

Small Town Chicago is not a for-profit organization. We rely on government funds as the system saves money for the local government and increases their performance.

Value web
Full report

Some of the notable Challenges behind the scene.

Backstage challenges

- Abstract the complexity 

 

This is a hugely complex system. There are lots of different stakeholders involved. The first challenge was to talk about the system and showcase our direction while we didn't have any solid concept yet. We had to do it in front of the Motorola Solutions representatives after we finished the research phase. We needed to inform them about our direction and received confirmation for the rest of the project.  For this case; I abstracted the complicated value map of the system to a new framework to explain our thoughts.

The picture above shows how the platform works right now. The picture below-left shows the same system in another format. As you see, the relationships between the different stakeholders are not transparent. Residents requests and voices lost in the system. The situation reminds me the Schrodinger cat theory. Residents do not know that whether their voice has heard or not, and why the decisions have made. 

- Lost in the system

 

We tried to solve the whole ecosystem, so we created the flowchart of the activities that each stakeholder do in the system. The result is in the picture below. A huge complex system which needs years of work to solve it. It was apparent that we were going in a wrong direction. Therefore we step back. We realized other platforms such as Twitter, Nextdoor, facebook, etc are already cover part of the system. So instead of inventing wheels from scratch. We focused on the gaps.

The framework on the right shows the ideal situation. We didn't know how to achieve this system or which part of the system was more interesting for us. But this was the best way we could give our audience a clear idea of what we were looking for in this project.

Current Situation

Ideal Situation

After we reduced the system to the gaps, we found our opportunity space. Our research insights supported these new gaps. In the picture below, I am describing the new chart to my team. If you compare it with the previous image, you can see the difference. In the later iterations, we made the concept more and more simple. 

- Physical Assets to present the Idea

 

We realize that, although the concept is simple we needed to be smart about the presentation. It was possible that audience lost in the details. Especially about the augmented reality. So I created a model of the city and signage to show the types of reports. The craft stems to display the traffic prediction in that area.

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