Designing for civic engagement
The City Council in Willowdale has many initiatives to encourage participation and city council interactions with the public.
My goal was to understand the needs of the Willowdale community, and find the opportunities to improve participation and interaction with the City Council.
Service & Experience design
Storytelling
Content strategy
Civic tech
timeline
June 2024 - Sept 2024
Project
End-to-end platform
Tools
Figma
Google Suite
My contribution
I designed a conceptual white-label platform that city councils, like Willowdale's, can adopt to foster two-way communication, create a safe space for dialogue, and accommodate residents with varying levels of interest in civic engagement.
SETTING THE SCENE
Approaches to improve civic engagement
I have always been interested in participatory processes that place the community and its people at the forefront of co-designing their own lived experiences. I have lived in Willowdale for 3 years now. When I started noticing posters about the participatory budgeting program, I did not originally know what this meant and was eager to learn more.
What is participatory budgeting (PB)?
A quick Google search explained what Participatory budgeting is and how it works:
Participatory budgeting (PB) is a democratic process in which community members decide how to spend part of a public budget. It gives people real power over real money.
— Via Participatory Budgeting Project
The phases of the program can vary depending on who is implementing it, but these are the general phases according to the Organizing Engagement website:
THE CHALLENGE
Looking beyond PB
When I first learned about participatory budgeting, I saw it as a great way to simplify government processes. It offers residents a direct way to engage with their community and see the real impact of their contributions.
The issue
Reading into past participatory budgeting initiatives in different cities quickly made me realize that there are also downsides, depending on how the program is managed. For example, according to one researcher:
There is always the risk that it just becomes another box for the city to check. Like: ‘This is what we did for public input.’ And when that happens, it becomes undermined.”
— Vincent Russell, Greensboro
What about civic engagement beyond Participatory Budgeting? Since PB relies on available public budgets and isn't guaranteed annually, I still saw a long-term opportunity for city councils to increase engagement, whether it be through surveys, policy updates, consultations or taking in general feedback. Strengthening these interactions are important too, even when PB is not at play.
The CASE STUDY
Why I chose Willowdale
Willowdale was an ideal case study for exploring the opportunity for civic tech for several reasons:
A good learning example
Willowdale has many council-led initiatives. It serves as learning model for what city councils can achieve and provides a great avenue for understanding strengths and opportunities for improvement.
Diverse demographics
Willowdale has a unique mix of long-time residents and a newer population. Newer residents are less familiar with the council, highlighting a need for improved engagement across diverse demographics.
Stakeholder alignment
Understanding the digital engagement landscape
In hopes of gaining more information beyond the PB program, I was fortunate to set up a meeting with the City Council’s Digital Engagement team. Based on this interview, I mapped out some of the touch-points for digital engagement:
The Willowdale Facebook group
Through this interview, I was pointed to one of the major engagement touch-points: The Willowdale Facebook group. After joining the group, I noticed residents frequently posted about local issues, tagging the City Council with their questions, which the Councillor actively responds to.
Willowdale Action Hub
It also led me to the second major touchpoint, the Willowdale Action Hub — a website dedicated to Participatory Budgeting ideas, and surveys for residents, garnered less attention.
Lack of visibility of behind-the-scene efforts
When interviewing the Digital Engagement coordinator, I made note of several pain points that they experienced:
Managing multiple platforms is time-consuming
Time is spent sifting through comments, and posting on all platforms. Staff cannot reply on behalf of the Councillor, which limits the ability to streamline communication.
Limited ability for Individualized interactions
Replies from the City Councillor on Facebook are not seen by everyone. This raises the question of whether the effort put into engagement is yielding the desired impact.
Overall, many engagement programs are running in parallel with the daily communications that people are expecting. However, these programs are sometimes noticed less compared to residents’ direct and daily concerns.
Service mapping
Consolidating information through a service map
Following the above issue, it only made sense that I should scope out the landscape of engagement for the City council in Willowdale, and the potential pain points for residents — before jumping to designing any solutions.
I mapped out a service blueprint with all the touch-points (physical and digital) for the engagement for the Participatory Budget program, and potential pain points or opportunities. Digital touch-points include:
See service map
Research question
Promoting two-way dialogue
With a clearer understanding of the digital engagement landscape, I quickly realized that the missing piece was a platform capable of fostering meaningful two-way dialogue between the Council and residents.
The question
What type of communication strategies would satisfy both the City council and residents of Willowdale for a more meaningful relationship?
To what extent had Willowdale already achieved this? Where were the gaps and opportunities?
What does meaningful two-way dialogue mean for residents of Willowdale?
User interviews
What do residents of Willowdale want?
I developed 3 specific research questions that I could explore through user interviews.
Ideological barriers
What are residents’ perspectives on local politics and what prevents or encourages them to get involved?
Interaction barriers
What makes residents feel seen, heard by their city council?
Digital barriers
How do residents want to feel connected ? What communication styles matter to them?
The best way to understand your users is to go out and meet them
While I did conduct interviews with residents from the Willowdale Facebook group—who tend to be more aware of local happenings—I also wanted to capture insights from the broader community. I organized pop-up street interviews in one of Willowdale’s main public spaces, Mel Lastman Square.
Research synthesis
The value-action gap
Through interviews, I identified a value-action gap, where residents might notice City council announcements and signage, but this awareness did not always translate into actual engagement with the City Council or the Participatory Budgeting program.
To better understand this gap, I first used empathy maps, which helped me distill key insights from interviews about what people are saying to understand what they are thinking, feeling and doing. I organized the empathy map by different 'types of engagement' to reveal specific pain points and emotions at various stages. This served as a foundation for developing the user persona.
See empathy maps
Research synthesis
The spectrum of civic engagement
Through these methods, I identified a key insight about resident engagement: residents fall along a spectrum of involvement:
The curious observer: Individuals who have specific neighbourhood interests and would benefit from staying informed about those interests
Community connectors: Individuals with the ability to lead and support community-based initiatives.
User persona
Who are we designing for?
As one of the interview participants rightfully noted:
The squeaky wheel usually gets the grease.”
— Interview participant
When given the opportunity, everyone I interviewed had an opinion on the neighbourhood. However, the ‘squeaky wheel’ was a recurring sentiment among many interviewees, who suggested that those who are more vocal, usually will overshadow others.
With this in mind, I chose to design for the ‘curious observer’. By creating a platform tailored to their needs first, the design would also support those who are more actively engaged.
Introducing: Amara
Her issue
City council consultations can seem exclusive, making her hesitant to participate because she fears others might be more knowledgeable or opinionated.
Her need
A safe, and supportive space to communicate with the city council.
How might we...
...provide Amara with a safe & supportive space to share her thoughts, ideas, and opinions on improving Willowdale so that she experiences more positive civic interaction and feel heard & involved?
Ideation
What are we designing towards?
Meeting users where they are at
In order to build two-way dialogue and to meet the user’s need for a safe and supportive space, two key elements emerged:
Clear & digestible Information
For those who are hesitant or passive, information must be simple and easy to understand, breaking down complex processes and encouraging involvement.
Multiple action-oriented engagement options
A range of engagement methods are needed at all stages to meet people where they are, allowing them to participate in ways that align with their skills, interests, and comfort levels.
Balancing organic interaction with structured communication
Ideation is beneficial when it is collaborative. Since I was designing this solution on my own and had limited time, I decided to do a competitive analysis as part of the process to learn from others.
This helped me identify a third critical key insight:
Fostering community in safe way
For both the Willowdale Action Hub and Council newsletters the lack of community-driven approach may be hampering engagement. Even then, there is a need for positive and safe engagement that allows for all voices to feel heard.
Storyboarding
Recentering around Amara’s story
Feature prioritization
A customizable platform
At this stage, my product concept is a customizable platform designed for city councils, offering various templates (or ‘channels’) that can choose from — tailored to their specific programs and needs. This includes channels such as:
#Events
For council-led and local events happening in the area.
#Newsroom
For council policy and community updates and actions.
#Get involved
For council-led engagement programs such as surveys or PB.
#Bulletin board
For residents to post their own announcements.
#Community spaces
Groups for residents to join based on their own interests.
#Ask the councillor
Form option to provide direct feedback or ask a question.
Focusing on contested spaces
Given the limited scope of the project, I focused on designing 2 specific templates; focussing on channels that were needed by Willowdale, but also had the greatest impact when balancing structured communications with organic interaction. This includes:
Newsroom
This would replace email newsletters and would include action-oriented engagement options to foster meaningful two-way dialogue
Get involved
This would include the PB program, and would incorporate digestible information and a safe, supportive space for submitting and championing ideas
Design, test & repeat
The Newsroom
Clear and digestible information
Multiple modes of engagement
Fostering community in a safe way
content strategy
Participatory budgeting: Content strategy
For this part of the platform, content strategy and user feedback played a key role in shaping the layout and functions.
Clear and digestible information
Usability tests showed that users had 3 distinct aspects of PB that they wanted to understand:
Introduction to PB and funding
What is PB?
How much funding is being received?
What type of projects are funded?
The different phases of PB
What are the different phases of PB and what is the main CTA at each phase?
How long is each phase?
Responsibilities of submitting an idea
What should be submitted?
What happens afterwards?
What is a project champion and how will they be supported?
With this in mind, the ‘Get involved’ section of the platform was designed to make sure that instructions were clearly visible and easy to grasp.
Fostering community in a safe way
At the start of this project, I noticed residents were hesitant to champion ideas, unsure of how to mobilize the community. Drawing inspiration from the community-driven nature of Facebook groups, I identified a final key feature for PB: "Community Spaces," where residents could interact organically and share resources.
Next steps
Scaling up: a platform for all city councils
The goal of this project was to showcase features within an end-to-end platform that would primarly benefit the city council in Willowdale, by balancing structured city council communications with organic interaction and multiple modes of engagement.
However, this platform is not limited to Willowdale, and can be used as a white-label concept for multiple city councils, allowing them to add customize features according to their needs.
Before scaling up
As a next step it would be important to consider two things:
The role of blended engagement
When it comes to public engagement digital-only methods can increase the digital divide and exclude the very communities that are most often left out of decision-making processes, such as low-income communities who lack internet connectivity.
A truly inclusive engagement strategy requires a thoughtful blend of digital and in-person methods. For example, future considerations would include testing out whether the digital 'Community spaces' are effective, and where physical community spaces are needed instead.
Pretotyping
Before designing the product, or it is vital to validate public interest. How can this be done? Pretotyping involves creating a simplified version with existing resources. For example, instead of the 'Newsroom', updates can be posted on Facebook's 'Community chat' to understand how residents respond to the opportunity for 2-way dialogue.
Test out the platform!
Thanks for reading.
© Sharmeena Lalloo. 2024