Milano Partecipa
The Milano Partecipa project aims to redesign the Municipality of Milan's digital platform for citizen engagement in local governance. It seeks to improve accessibility, usability, and participation by addressing existing issues through user research, information architecture refinement, and new features. The platform supports activities like referendums and petitions, leveraging open-source software to enhance transparency and community trust. The project emphasizes inclusivity, targeting diverse user needs, particularly underrepresented groups.
Team size::
5
Duration:
16 weeks
My role
Problem Identification: Identified existing issues with the current website through comprehensive user research, desktop studies, heuristic analysis, and competitive analysis.
Problem Definition and Targeting: Defined core problems, identified the target audience, and pinpointed opportunities for improvement. Developed strategic solutions to address these issues effectively.
Service Map Creation: Took charge of creating the Service Map for the agreed-upon solutions, detailing the interaction and service delivery processes.
Information Architecture and Prototyping: Collaborated with team members to define the product's information architecture and was responsible for designing low-fidelity prototypes, laying the groundwork for further development.
Creative Development for Offline Components: Led the creative process and implementation of offline components, enhancing the overall user experience and presentation of the product.
Product Testing and Design Optimization: Actively participated in product testing, providing insights that facilitated iterative design enhancements to improve functionality and user satisfaction.
Conclusion
Employing an approach that places end-users at the heart of our process, we used cutting-edge design ideas and rigorous development to reinvigorate the Milano Partecipa platform beyond the city's goals for fostering citizen participation in local decision-making. The initiative required comprehensive user studies to reveal problem areas, after which we restructured the information framework to boost navigability and ensure inclusivity. By introducing novel functionalities powered by open-source software, we heightened the platform's accessibility and supported transparency, creating a more vibrant and inclusive setting for the residents of Milan. The project stands as a testament to our commitment to bringing forth digital tools that empower local communities.
Project Detail
What is Milano Partecipa?
"Milano Partecipa" is a digital platform by the Municipality of Milan for citizen involvement in city governance. It's open to residents and city users aged 16 and above. The platform features various participation processes, including referendums, petitions, and consultations. The platform uses the open-source software Decidim, emphasizing transparency and citizen engagement in local decision-making.
Adoption
Broaden the user base of the tool, enabling the platform to be utilized by a wider range of users, primarily Milan citizens.
Information
Enhance the quality of information to make the provided services more useful and practical.
Target
Understand the target, identify the specific needs of the target users, and ensure that the offered services cater to those needs.
The Process
Research
Desk Research
Insights
The high proportion of immigrants in Milan indicates their significant role in the city and their impact on the economy, culture, and social life.
As permanent residents, immigrants have similar needs and expectations to Milanese citizens, such as employment opportunities, education, healthcare, and social integration.
Immigrant populations usually have diverse backgrounds and needs, covering common issues faced by many groups.
Initial Idea
Based on this finding, if we design our service solutions with this immigrant group as the starting point, we have the potential to develop more inclusive and widely applicable solutions that can meet the needs of different groups.
Heuristics Analysis
After conducting the heuristics analysis, we got some valuable insights that we later took into consideration as we designed the interfaces.
Actions to keep in mind
Keep navigation simple and transparent at all times by communicating effectively, which are the clickable elements in the UI, and keeping consistency through the design system definition.
Enhance overall site hierarchy and information architecture by performing suitable tests with users to develop a logical structure.
As a priority, give feedback at all times to the user based on his actions.
Add shortcuts to enhance navigation from the first screen the user access.
Ensure the user can change basic settings such as language and profile details.
Benchmarking
How do we want to position Milano Partecipa in the current participatory systems landscape?
Hybrid Citizen Engagement
Create a platform that combines elements of aggregative and deliberative democracy, allowing users to both propose new initiatives and actively participate in existing services provided by the Municipality.
Community Empowerment
Create a platform that combines elements of aggregative and deliberative democracy, allowing users to both propose new initiatives and actively participate in existing services provided by the Municipality.
Access and Communication
Create a platform that combines elements of aggregative and deliberative democracy, allowing users to both propose new initiatives and actively participate in existing services provided by the Municipality.
Concept
Boost Platform
Reach
Place Ads in public spaces such as parks, libraries, and transport stations, allowing people to quickly access Partecipa. Ensure seamless integration with social media platforms to maximize engagement.
Interest-based
Engagement Tools
Create personalized dashboards where users can follow updates on projects or policies affecting their interests, like local renovations or transport changes. Use geo-targeted notifications to alert them about nearby events, making the platform more relevant to their daily lives.
Enhance Quality of Participation
Enable a deeper level of participation and engagement from different types of users (Citizens and City Users). Integrate a service with multiple levels of participatory processes, where users can propose, leave opinions and discuss hot topics.
Building
Trust
Maintaining the transparency of the project budget and process demonstration of success cases to develop citizens’ trust in our platform and believe their efforts will contribute to changes.
Main Features
Service Map
APP Design
Information Architecture
Creating Information Architecture involves using Open Card Sorting to gather user insights on content organization, Closed Card Sorting to refine and validate categories, and Tree Testing to assess navigational effectiveness and make necessary adjustments.
Design System
Usability Test
Tasks
Problem Analysis
We got an elevated misclick rate on Homepage in tasks related to petitions and debates. We realized it was because users were trying to access those pages by clicking on the “petitions” and “debates” filters in the “Popular Proposals”, probably confusing them with buttons.
Potential Improvement
The proposed solution is based on adding shortcuts to improve Nielsens’ Heuristics #6: Recognition rather than recall. First, by making two separated highlighted sections for debates and petitions respectively. Secondly, by including a “Essentials” section with shortcuts to the most important features.
Conclusions & Further Actions
While our primary objective was to create an inclusive platform that targets minorities and underrepresented communities within the Municipality, it is important to note that the solution is designed for every user falling under the "Citizen" and "City Users" categories defined by the Municipality.
We conducted rigorous testing and iterative improvements throughout the development process to validate the Information Architecture and user interface. The results of our testing sessions indicate that most users successfully completed tasks, with minor areas for improvement that can be addressed in future iterations.
A significant focus of our concept was the development of new features that foster community-building and trust among citizens. The Activities and Communities sections have emerged as important components we intend to develop further and enhance.