As a UX and Product designer, I designed a public voting app-kiosk that will allow citizens to connect with the public arts and the San Francisco Arts Commission
problem synthesis
The SFAC is looking to be much more transparent in it's plans for public art, and wants to engage the city's inhabitants to help prioritize what it invests in.
Project description:
problem synthesis
Citizens connect with the public art commissioned by SFAC for several intentions,
as shown here.
The SF Arts Commission is the city council that champions the arts.
Through art education programs, street activation initiatives,
public art work, grant funded performances and more,
the SFAC acts as a catalyst for life-changing experiences for the citizens and
tourists of one of the most beautiful cities in the world.
Citizens interface with SFAC for several reasons:
problem synthesis
We defined our mission based on the current pain points which we summarized as:
Summary of pain points to address for SFAC:
solution discovery
We modeled designs for an accessible turnable public voting kiosk:
Accessible public voting kiosk design:
solution discovery
We design a simple tablet application which allows citizens to view existing and upcoming public art. We developed a simple icon language which will allow the user to vote or get more information
Video of application prototype:
solution discovery
From our research and collaborative design process, we realized that the best way to engage public participation is by intervening seamlessly in public spaces where citizens might pause. Since citizens interface with the city at several touchpoints like public areas, this gives SFAC more opportunities to connect with people to anonymously vote for at while they pass by or wait.
Presenting the strategy:
solution discovery
We delivered wireframes and clickable prototypes for the "SFAC-Forum" - an addition to the SFAC website which will allow users to share opinions and have a moderated discussion about public arts and performances on the website
SFAC extension website (SFAC-Forum) wireframes:
solution discovery
We presented high fidelity mockups for the website and the tablet app.
High fidelity mockups for SFAC-forum website and public voting tablet app:
process
We began our research by conducting a user survey where we asked users to vote on several examples of existing and future works of art. Our design hypotheses and solution statements were born of these surveys and interviews.
1. We learnt that citizens have varying opinions on existing public art and their opinion is not captured by decision makers
2. We also realized that citizens need to have more clarity and transparency about the council's ideas for the future of the city, to better relate to the outcome and the council itself
Results from our survey revealed divided opinions on future art proposals such as:
Results from User survey:
process
We used a heuristic framework to study the websites and processes of other city council bodies from the Bay Area to learn more about how we can improve SFAC's presence like:
Competitive Analysis with a heuristic framework:
process
We took inspiration from physical as well as digital applications for ideation such as:
Detailed User and Structural Flow Map:
process
While it is difficult to represent all citizens and visitors of San Francisco, we developed three personas who could be seeking to connect with SFAC for several reasons:
Personas:
process
We made prototypes of cardboard and paper, which aided us in illiciting feedback from several users. This helped us rapidly go through several design iterations for the flow and features of the product.
Making prototypes to rapidly test design assets and details:
process
We tested the public voting tablet application product on several users with our cardboard prototype. This video shows a quick preview of the process.
Video of user feedback testing of prototypes:
I'm Aarti. I'm a designer + developer and I'm bringing together my past experience in architecture and software engineering to build new futures. Get in touch:
designed and developed by © aartics
