Re-designing Milan's civic engagement platform to boost young citizen participation through user-friendly and gamified features.
Brief
Create a digital, Milano Partecipa platform to engage younger citizens more effectively. Increase platform usage through user-friendly designs and features that promote transparency, enhance dialogue, and boost visibility.
Context
Milano Partecipa is a web-based digital platform initiated by the Municipality of Milan that enhances civic engagement by enabling citizens to participate in discussions, propose projects, and collaborate on urban improvements. It encourages active community involvement in shaping public policies.
Role
UX research, UX/UI design, Prototyping, Testing
Process
Following the Double Diamond process, the re-design was divided into two sections: Research and Design.
01. Research
Literature Research
We began the literature research by analyzing the current Milano Partecipa platform. Then we explored what civic participation actually is by reviewing similar municipal websites and scholarly articles on citizen engagement for a better understanding.
The research was centered around these frameworks:
Habits & Behaviour
Participation
Awareness
Needs
Possible Solutions
Findings
Method
Key
Findings & Insights
And transition from Desk research to Field research.
Digital
Ethnography
After benchmarking and identifying gaps, we used digital ethnography to better understand user needs and mental models, aiming to bridge these gaps.
Findings
Using insights from benchmarking and digital ethnography, we plotted five key points on a radar graph that helped us visualize the areas for scope of improvement on the Partecipa platform.
Youth Engagement: Level of young adult involvement in decision-making.
Community: Opportunities for user connections, meetings, and content sharing.
Transparency: Clarity on fund allocation, timelines, and proposal rejections.
Interaction: Participation levels and service effectiveness.
Digitalization: Integration of the service into citizens' daily lives naturally.
Survey
After desk research, we conducted a field survey targeting young adults to refine our target group profile and understand their civic engagement levels.
In total, we received 43 responses.
Key areas explored included:
Citizenship Participation Attitudes
Political Involvement
Local Engagement
Interviews
We conducted interviews to evaluate whether to narrow or broaden our target audience, considering various demographics to gauge engagement potential with the platform.
They could be:
18 to 20-year-old Milanese student.
20 to 25-year-old university student, possibly non-local or foreign.
Working young adult, resident in Milan.
We interviewed 6 people.
Key goals:
Target Audience Scope
Determine if focusing on specific groups like students enhances engagement.
Barriers and Facilitators
Understand obstacles to civic participation and how Milano Partecipa can mitigate these.
Strategic Insights
Gain deeper insights into audience needs to optimize the platform for better engagement and impact.
02. Design
Card Sorting
Having to design the app from scratch, we used open card sorting to align the organizational structure with users' mental models, ensuring it meets their needs and preferences in the initial design phase.
Insights
Gathering all the information from the research, surveys and the interviews, we were able to get the final design insights.
Discussion
Enable users to initiate discussions directly on the platform.
Communication
Make communication straightforward and less bureaucratic.
And clearly display municipal budgets, statuses, and project feedback to foster trust.
Clarity and Purpose
Improve clarity and purpose on the website to help users understand objectives and projects better.
Design
Enhance platform design for a more appealing and engaging appearance.
Tree Testing
Based on card sorting results, we organized sections to align with the users' mental models. We adjusted these based on observed user misunderstandings and began outlining the app's information structure.
In general, users made fewer errors and spent less time on most tasks, but a few showed more errors and longer completion times.
The takeaway from this was:
Reorganize sections
Improve nomenclature
Using home as a starting point for reaching other sections
New Information Architecture
Low Fidelity Prototype
After creating low-fidelity wireframes, we tested them with a structured task list to evaluate each app section.
We revised the wireframes based on the results and conducted a second round of testing, which went smoothly, leading us to progress to the mockup stage.
Design System
The design system aims to resonate with a younger audience by being fun yet informative.
The color palette, inspired by Milano Partecipa’s Instagram page, features accent colors to introduce a gamified user experience, appealing to younger users.
High Fidelity Prototype
Once the prototype was ready, the testing phase began to evaluate element visibility, arrangement, and usability.
Testing involved 20 participants, including 8 BikeMI users, using Maze to maintain consistent tasks from earlier mockup tests and analyze results effectively.
We also created a dark mode that gave the platform a gamer look to make it more engaging.
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Light Mode
Home Page & Account
Your Opinion Page - Forum
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Your Opinion Page - Petitions
Projects Page
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Dark Mode
Benchmarking
Following the research, we conducted a benchmarking study to evaluate platforms similar to Milano Partecipa that achieved better outcomes. We analyzed the most successful international platforms, expanding our scope beyond Italy to include global examples that have demonstrated effective results.
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