East of the Anacostia: A service design case study
Improving city services in Washington, DC by researching resident needs across all wards.
For this project, we were tasked by DC government as part of their multi-year project to improve digital services for residents across the city. We divided and conquered in teams of two to cover all eight wards in order to discover their most pressing needs.
My partner Jackie and I were assigned ward 7 in the Southeast quadrant of DC, and one of two wards East of the Anacostia river.
Secondary Research
Before interviewing residents, we researched some secondary research and statistics from DC Health matters. This provided us with context for the population we were about to interview.
Ward 7 has a population of 80,642 people, about 11% of DC’s total population. The ward is also majority African American at 92%.
The average age of the ward trends slightly older with more baby boomers and less 25–34 year olds than the city average. The ward also has 72% of residents without college degrees and 26% reporting a disability due to health reasons. This means our recommendations needed to take into account inclusivity and accessibility.
Ward 7 has a 17% unemployment rate, which is much higher than the DC average of 8.04%. A steep income gap exists between African Americans (92% of the ward) and Whites (3%). Feelings of disenfranchisement and being left behind were very prominent in our research and this data speaks to that sentiment.
User Research
In order to get a high level overview of DC resident sentiments, we sent out a screener survey and got responses from 197 people. Our responses came from all eight wards and helped us understand the most pressing needs across the city.
From our ward 7 responses we were able to collect direct quotes from residents on their hardships and pain points. Here are some of the reoccurring themes in our findings:
“Forced displacement of people of color.”
“Lack of resources in wards 7 & 8.”
“Politics and privilege on the other (mostly white) side of the city.”
“Dissonance between long-term residents, short term interns, college graduates, and political hires.”
“Lack of opportunities for poorly educated.”
“People in power fostering discrimination through gentrification efforts.”
After collecting screener survey responses, we went to ward 7 to talk to residents. In a span of two days we interviewed seven for about 20 minutes each at two different libraries.
In addition to our ward 7 interviews, we conducted nine other interviews with people from other DC wards. While ward 7 needs were the focus of our project, the final service design and recommendations had to apply to all of DC so it was important to have that context as well.
How long have you lived in this ward?
How do you solve problems in your community?
Have you ever used DC 311?
We decided to ask about DC 311 because that is a common resource residents use to get non-emergency DC government services.
From our interviews, we affinity mapped our responses into two buckets. First, how did people access 311 services (phone, in-person, online, never). Then what were the most pressing needs in their communities.
Based on our affinity mapping and interview responses, we developed three DC personas. Two of them were based on our ward 7 interviews, and one represented a resident of ward 4, west of the river.
We decided to focus on James, who lives in ward 7 and works at Benning Library as a library assistant. The library acts as a pseudo community center in the neighborhood. He deals with homelessness, people having mental health crises, under supervised children, and public safety issues every day at his job.
In order to develop a solution for improving DC government services we took note of James’ problems with current government services:
- He thinks 311 is not reliable because the phone operators often don’t transfer him to the right place.
- He finds the 311 website is quite confusing and he doesn’t like the experience.
- He feels that ward 7 is not getting the attention it needs and is generally skeptical of the government.
Recommendations
From our user research, we were able to develop key recommendations for DC government:
- Execute an ad campaign for 311 across wards to raise awareness and inform residents the ways local government can help them.
- Equip community workers with knowledge around government services — There are a lot of people like James who are working and living among vulnerable populations and could be great community advocates for DC government services. Our colleagues researching neighboring ward 8 decided to take on this challenge in their project.
- Re-design the 311 homepage to better reflect the service needs of residents.
Re-designing DC 311
The first 311 phone number was started in Baltimore in 1996 to alleviate heavy traffic on 911 phone lines. The service was a success and exists online and over the phone in most major US cities today.
We wanted to learn from other cities with 311 and compare innovations to improve DC’s website. We picked 10 award-winning 311 pages out of the 50 most populous US cities.
First, we compared DC’s 311 page features to our top 10 cities. These included navigation tools, maps, service request trackers, etc. Overall, DC 311 fell in the middle of our top 10 sites when it came to number of features.
Next, we compared website content on DC’s 311 vs. these other ten cities. Our users told us what services they want to access in a 311 page during our interviews. Those are reflected under the content column on the far left. DC falls short as other cities have more services that are more holistic than just trash and parking.
Usability Testing
We tasked five people with navigating the current DC 311 site. Our users could accomplish the task we gave, but there were pain points along the way and it generally wasn’t a positive experience.
From our usability testing, we developed a journey map that documented the user’s feelings as they used this service. The journey map allowed us to visually document each pain point and track the user’s general emotional state as they used the website. The dips in the line graph represent frustrations while the peaks were positive feelings and satisfaction.
Wireframing
When we began to design, we returned to James’ main issue with the 311 website: He finds it confusing and doesn’t like the experience.
In an ideal 311 re-design, his path accessing the service would have fewer delays and an easy flow online to make a request without the pain points we discovered in the journey map.
Keeping the ideal web experience in mind, we conducted a design studio exercise to develop the initial wireframe for the homepage. This allowed us to get our ideas out on paper and offer critiques in a constrained timeframe. Our final concept from this exercise included features from other city sites we liked and the services we found most pressing from interviews.
Next, we needed to incorporate our research on site content and resident service needs into a paper prototype. But we didn’t have a pre-defined order for them on the page itself.
We decided to conduct a card sorting exercise and see what users found intuitive when navigating 311’s services.
Testers arranged the service category cards on the carousel piece in a way that made the most sense to them. What we hoped to gain from this exercise was an intuitive flow for the order of services on the homepage.
What we found was that the most actionable and urgent services like public safety, parking, and transportation were put in front. Less action-oriented/more informative 311 services were placed last.
Final Prototype
For our mid-fi 311 landing page, we designed it to be on the shorter side and prioritizing services online, as well as incorporating our research recommendations where possible.
Product Next Steps
For next steps, we suggested completing a full website re-design. We also recommended a “soft launch” rather than bombarding DC residents at once with a new website. For example, New York’s 311 page has a banner on their current site to have users opt-in to their new content.
From here we can collect metrics, launch a 311 ad campaign to educate the public, and fix any bugs that arise with our soft launch.
Conclusion
This project revealed the need to understand, research and engage with DC residents from all wards in order to provide the best government services possible. We were able to shine a spotlight on ward 7, whose needs are often overlooked compared to other parts of the city. We hope that bringing user-centered design to DC 311 helps these residents feel heard.
Thanks to the DC local government for letting us take on this project! I appreciate any and all feedback from others who have done design work in the civic space. If you’d like to connect about service design, UX, or just want to say hi, feel free to reach out via Linkedin.
