USDR

Dashboard research and evaluation

Performing evaluative research on dashboards around violence reduction for the City of Chicago’s safety initiatives

CLIENT:

City of Chicago via USDR

SKILLS:

User Research, Heuristics, UX Audit, Project Management

DURATION:

1 month

TEAM:

Sole UX Researcher and Design Consultant

OVERVIEW

Ever since the Covid-19 pandemic broke out in America, crime rates have risen in large cities. The City of Chicago took on an initiative to help reduce crime through many solutions, most notably a website serving public needs.

How do we create a better experience on the violence reduction website for City of Chicago residents, so that they can clearly understand what to look for?

For this project, I worked for USDR to partner with the City of Chicago’s technology division in helping review the usability of one of their websites. Not only did I take on the Project Lead role, but I was also the sole volunteer performing both research and design work. This included scoping, project management, documentation, conducting end-to-end user research, and creating design recommendations for the client.

Learn more about UX Audits at USDR

BACKGROUND

U.S. Digital Response (USDR) is a nonprofit organization founded in 2020 that helps governments and small organizations address the crucial needs of the public. They are completely volunteer based and connects private sector employees with government organizations to work on projects for the common good and deliver services to support millions of people over the US.

Learn more about USDR

FINAL DELIVERABLES

Design recommendations for improving the website

Since the client only had a limited understanding of who their users were, I conducted secondary research and then recruited 5 potential users to speak in depth with. Furthermore, I performed expert reviews and think aloud exercises with the participant cohort. From this research, I was able to put together a website strategy plan and design recommendations for the client.

IMPACT

The start of a successful work partnership

The City of Chicago team was really pleased with the plethora of recommendations offered and I see this as a project that helped the team establish a starting point for thinking about how to redesign their site. As this was the first project the Chicago team worked on with USDR, it helped establish a foundation of trust between USDR and the partner. They were convinced to continue the partnership even after the project was complete as they had such a great experience.

Thanks for reading!

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