Co-City
ABOUT THE PROJECT
Title: Co-City
Type of work: Service Design
Date: 5 August - 30 August 2019
Team: Jacob Meesenburg, Joseph Chi and me.
Software: Sketch, Origami
Deliverables: product concept, systems, digital (UI) prototype, physical prototype, service videos, customer experience, service blueprint, customer journey mapping, current state & future state journey, people-centered research
The project brief is to rethink intentional community - design a service that helps people increase social capital through mutual trust and interdependence. Our team is designing a service that bridges the communication gap between citizens and the municipality which fosters more civic engagement in urban planning, switching the static conception of the public space as a finished product to a continually improving service.
My role in the project is research, concept development, graphic user interface design & prototyping, product iteration and user testing.
RESEARCH
The team starts the project with a research question that what democracy model is in social participation/decision making in buildings in Copenhagen.
Through desk research, the team tried to understand current city planning process. Here are key problems the team identified:
1. Bliv Hørt is an official website from government to communicate city planning to the public, which there’s low engagement for citizens with non-architecture background.
2. Politicians are being consulted by urban planners and have the decision making power over the city infrastructure projects, while citizens don't feel their voices are heard.
Bliv Hort shows 42 pages local plan proposal for citizens to review and comment, which includes complex information in technical wordings.
Restaurant owner D in Amager Beach told us that he tried to communicate to municipality about his needs for the area his restaurant was, but didn't get back replies.
CONCEPT
What is it?
Co-City is a service platform that bridges the communication gap between citizens and government. Through a tangible terminal in the public space for citizens to actively input their needs, Co-city also gives a voice to the highly active individuals by opening the possibility of proposing an idea to be backed up by others. With citizen's needs data, municipality can make a more informed decision and respond to the public of their future plans.
How does it work?
With simple interaction drag and drop, the participants can easily create their project on how they want the space to be like with their actual needs (eg. more trash bins or toilets) and the exact location they want. After submission, Co-city system will organise the data and generate a report to the municipality. The municipality then can use the data for city planning decision making process.
Value Proposition
Using emerging technologies and IoT to encourage civic engagement, Co-city raises the awareness of social responsibility, direct democracy and help the public participate in shaping the city collectively. It switches the static conception of the public space as a finished product to a dynamic public space that keeps being evolved by citizen's needs is seen as a service.
Changing public space from finished product to service
Current & Future state journey map
Service blueprint
Ideation on service user journey
Lo-fi prototype to test if people have interest in voicing their opinion in public spaces and if icons help express their needs.
From insights from prototype 1, we understand citizens needs some existing reference to initiate projects, it's easier if they can see how others voice up. So we build 2nd prototype with rendered image of needs for 2nd round of co-creation.
Co-creation with expert (architect) to see how they'd love to gather information from citizens.
Final interaction on digital phase of Co-city: simple drag and drop interaction to express needs.
Final version of Co-city in public space for user testing.
PROCESS
The team has an assumption that to create better civic engagement and raise the awareness of social responsibility, direct democracy might help the public participate in building the city together. As public space is an important space for every citizen, empowering citizens to constantly communicate their needs on using public spaces and encouraging changes that have real needs are crucial.
We did 12 interviews and co-creation with citizens and experts. Based on the insights, the team has 4 rounds of iterations.
Exploring representative democracy and direct democracy model in city planning setting.
LEARNINGS
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Lack of self-awareness has an impact of recognition on personal needs
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Data collection terminal helps different scales of organisations for multi-perspective information gathering
NEXT STEPS
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Collaboration with municipality on data access and tool maintenance
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Exploration on different functions on tool: voice recording, highlighted story, better interaction design
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IoT exploration:web interface, mobile app, etc
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Testing opportunities in data visualisation