CASE STUDY
This project was a rapid-fire Design Thinking exercise over 8 hours. The idea was to show my process when solving business problems.
The Challenge
“Example City” is famous for being a green city with lots of parks in the city centre.
However, recent numbers show that fewer citizens seem to visit the parks every year. It’s unclear why this is the case.
The task is to design a digital product to encourage citizens to spend more time outdoors by visiting their local parks.
Desk research
To understand what will motivate Citizens to visit parks we need to complete thorough research.
With research we would look into the who, what, where, when, why and how of park users. Questions we’re looking to answer would include:
• How are Citizens are using parks?
• When, where, and why are they visiting – or not visiting the parks?
• Who are they with?
• What competes with a park visit?
Key findings
More than half of park users wanted to be with family and friends, exercise, and be closer to nature.
Who’s using the park?
From the research and data gathered, we can start to create customer segments to develop our customer personas.
CUSTOMER PERSONA
Sean & Sarah
The Harris Family
DETAILS
• Sean (Risk Consultant) & Sarah (Public Relations)
• Married 11yrs with two children – Parker (7) & Jasmine (6)
• Lives in an apartment close to the CBD
BEHAVIOURS
• Sean loves technology & has many Apps on his device
• They love spending time outside in Summer
• The kids are active with Saturday Sport
GOALS
• Keep children entertained on weekends
• Encourage learning and development in children
• Try to keep their apartment (relatively) clean
THE OPPORTUNITY
How might we use technology to encourage young families to visit our parks?
IDEATION
Creative matrix
An ideation tool used to generate new ideas and possible solutions. Using a matrix helps drive effective brainstorming and can be very useful in Design Thinking co-creation sessions.
Storyboard
This sketched storyboard is a nice way to visualise key moments in this digital experience, and how they might work.
User flow
A flow diagram showing the required pages of the experience.
Wireframes
From the wireflow, we can start to develop the experience as a clickable prototype. Using simple blocks and colour, we start to create an experience that feels real and can provide valuable feedback to move the design forward.
Prototype
Once the wireframe is developed and feels right, we move into user interface design. This simple prototype features 3 screens of the digital experience, to give the customer just enough to feedback on.
Next steps are to get valuable customer feedback. Will anyone use this? Will they find it valuable? What if it didn’t exist?
Why this works
THE DATA
It will provide councils and stakeholders with an incredible amount of user-generated data. Who is visiting the parks? When? What are they enjoying most at each park?
EYES ON PLANTS
People would become caretakers of the parks, sharing hundreds of plant photos with park caretakers to create a data set that could save them maintenance time.
FUTURE EXPERIENCES
The data would help build the future of parks and targeted programs to park users.
It could also inform park development based on community interest.