Duration: September 2015 - December 2015
Role: Creative Lead for Graphic Design, UX Research Lead
Skills: Logo and Poster Design in Illustrator, User Interviews, Information Architecture and prototyping
The team and one of our partners at the CID expo
What is B2?
The B2 Watchers are a neighborhood watch group with many dedicated residents and strong relationships with city officials and police officers and community members.
PROBLEM
Despite its seven-year existence, there is untapped potential within the community. B2 Watchers wished to extend themselves in order to reach and serve more B2 residents. Most of the group’s effort is provided by a few number of people. To take on new efforts, B2 Watchers needed to find new ways to identify, recruit, and coordinate volunteers.
The neighborhood watch group also needed a platform to communicate, collaborate and share information.
Design Constraints
The solution needed to be:
Inexpensive: Being a self-organized, grassroots group in an economically challenged neighborhood of Jackson, the solution had to be inexpensive (if not free) to develop, and more importantly, to maintain.
Quick and easy to install and maintain: Most members of B2 watchers work full-time and also have children to take care of. The solution had to be handed over to a team with no/minimal technical background and very limited time to spare.
The Discovery Process
Stakeholder interviews
We interviewed group members, community members, and city officials to understand the history of B2 Watchers and the Jackson B2 district.
Community members provided a narrative of B2’s history, impact on the neighborhood and past efforts to create a safer neighborhood. City officials allowed us to get a better understanding of the relationships that B2 Watchers has created and maintained over the last seven years. The Director of Parks, Recreations, and Grounds, especially, provided our group with information regarding Loomis Park and Boos Center efforts.
These in depth interviews helped unearth the importance of utilizing the neighborhood center of Loomis Park and the Boos Center to unite the community. Loomis Park was a place where neighbors could meet each other because it was in a central location. This provided a crucial insight while considering various solutions to the problem.
Results from past surveys
Surveys provided valuable data to understand the community. We also learned that 82% of Jackson residents are Facebook users. This was a valuable statistic when developing our solution.
User scenarios
We focused on the two main kinds of users: a current B2 Watchers member and a new and an uninformed B2 resident. We utilized the interviews to draw up concrete user scenarios to be able to distinguish between the different audiences and their desires that our solutions should accommodate.
A closed Facebook group of over 100 members
Although this platform was restricted to people with Facebook accounts, it validated the group’s comfort with Facebook
Due to privacy concerns, the group is not open to the public. Members must be approved in order to join the online group. However, this also prevented new residents from discovering the group because it was hard for an uninformed, unaware B2 resident to stumble-upon.
Solution
The first part of the solution aims at making the group identifiable. The second part aims at dispersing useful information to B2 residents.
LOGO: To unequivocally communicate the mission and the identity of the group.
AN OPEN FACEBOOK PAGE: As the online Information sharing platform that anyone can access and allows the discovery of the existing Facebook group
BULLETIN BOARD: Offline platform for information sharing which is aimed at the older demographic
The group would use these platforms to share information about city ordinances, crime, and other useful information with the community.
Logo Design Iterations
What we gained from this experience
Sustainability first
This course pushed us to prioritize the sustainability of our proposed solution. Over the course of the semester and through the various design critique sessions, we learnt to look beyond the "cool" or interesting ideas and come up with solutions that were practical for the community that wished to adopt them.
Our team's first proposal was to build a website. This was the initial prototype of the proposed site:
As software developers and information professionals, this would have been easy for us to implement and handover. However, through the interviews, we were able to establish that prolonged use of such a site would not be possible.
Technology is not the solution to everything
It was important for us to get out of our comfort zone and consider solutions outside the realm of technology. Considering the different demographics of the audience, the bulletin board was an important part of our proposal. Although it seemed silly at first, the effectiveness and the simplicity of this common information sharing tool could not be debated.
We always need to be aware of our biases as it becomes increasingly easy to play to our strengths. It also reminded us to keep adding to our skillsets, because "if all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail" .