Cambridge Police Website Redesign
Dolphia has worked closely with the Cambridge Police Department Public Information Officer (PIO) and the City Manager’s office to build a website that helps residents and employees in Cambridge stay updated with what is happening around them and find information quickly.
Goal
This project started in November 2019. It aimed to update more than a decade-old design so residents could find information quickly without getting frustrated.
While that was the primary goal, the secondary objective was to uplift the Police image after the BLM movement. Both the City Manager and Police Commissioner wanted to make sure the diverse residents of Cambridge felt safe and secure.
UX Research
Every time a project starts, everyone wants a shiny brand-new website. Dolphia's job is to push back and ask them to think about their website's purpose. She uses Business Model Canvas to get those answers.
The city can't track users' personal data (due to PII), so PIO officers fill out that Business Model Canvas based on their interaction with the residents. This is what Police Department filled out.
Empathy Maps
Once the Business Model Canvas is finished and approved by the City Manager’s office, Dolphia returns to sticky notes and an empty wall. She creates three personas and empathy Maps.
These empathy maps help
the PIO officers understand and feel the users' pain points.
Dolphia understand what types of users she needs to recruit for user testing.
Based on Empathy Maps, the personas are created.
These personas brought Police Officers, PIO officers, and the City Manager’s office close to the users. These personas also lead Dolphia and the officers to finalize the questions for user testing.
User Testing
When the project started, the City did not have the budget for User Testing Software, and Dolphia performed all of the user testing in person at City Hall, the local public library, or via Zoom. All sessions were recorded, and once testing was done, Dolphia sent a report to the PIO officers.
Based on this data, Dolphia created wireframes.
Wireframes
Wireframes
Dolphia worked closely with Developers and PIO officers to build wireframes and organize information for the design. Once these wireframes were approved by the Police Commissioner and the City Manager, Dolphia started designing.
UX Design
Once the wireframes were approved, Dolphia worked on creating the final mocks using Sketch and Adobe Creative Suite. All these mocks are constantly uploaded to Invision. This process lasted several months as it took a while for the PIO managers to review the design changes and get approved by the City Manager and Commissioner.
At this stage, colors and images also get finalized. After 9-10 iterations, Dolphia sets up another round of user testing before developing the beta site.
User Testing
Dolphia used Userlytics to perform two rounds of user testing. Once the testing is done, Dolphia creates a detailed report and sends it to the PIO officers proposing the changes to the design she has created.
Some of these suggestions are often discarded due to lack of time or ‘Government needs to put that data out regardless.’
Dolphia was hired to find a middle ground between what users want and what the City has to say. She has been doing that since 2017.
