Distressed Property Report
My Role
UX Researcher & Product Manager
Project Type
Web & Print Design
Team
Andrew Ku, Fan Zhang, Trevor Croxson
THE PROBLEM: Government data was inaccessible
The City of Jackson Department of Neighborhood & Economic Operations (NEO) lacked an effective means of communicating information regarding distressed property to Jackson citizens.
"We need to convey blight-reduction information to citizens: what blight means, how it happens, and how long it takes." - Sheila Prater, Records Management Coordinator (NEO)
THE SOLUTION: CROSS CHANNEL DESIGN, WEB & PRINT
PROPERTY REPORT WEBSITE
The Distressed Property Report website visualizes Jackson's blight problem. It empowers citizens to explore their city and understand the problem of blight from both local and macro perspectives.
EDUCATIONAL PAMPHLETS
We created educational pamphlets to more readily deliver information regarding blight in Jackson and what was being done to combat it.
NEW CONDEMNATION NOTICE
A re-designed condemnation notice was created to provide neighboring residents a quick and easy way of accessing information about a given property and to facilitate offline discussions around blight.
Design Solutions
In order to bridge this gap in understanding and create a stronger channel of communication between city officials and citizens, we did five key design decisions in generating our solutions.
1. We provided summary statistics for urban blight across Jackson on the Distressed Property Report website. In doing so, we wanted to provide the macro-perspective city officials were working with to the average citizen.
2. We pinned all the distressed properties in Jackson, Michigan on an interactive map interface. In addition to summary statistics, citizens can now access all relevant information about blighted properties in Jackson.
3. We designed a detailed information page to empower citizens with all the up-to-date information that they need. Citizens can now check for updates without calling into city hall and avoid mistakenly purchasing condemned properties.
4. We redesigned the condemnation notices posted on the front doors of distressed properties. Door-to-door inquiries revealed that many citizens utilized physical condemnation notices as the primary resource for obtaining information about distressed properties in their neighborhood. By incorporating a graphical timeline into the condemnation notice, we increase process transparency and provide neighboring citizens more meaningful visual feedback.
5. We created educational pamphlets for distribution at local town hall meetings. Our research revealed that citizens would regularly attend town hall meetings to engage with government officials. Rather than having one official explain the problem of blight to several individuals many different times, we created an educational pamphlet to help instead.
The research Process
- We attended a local town hall meetings to better understand government and citizen interaction in Jackson
- We visited demolition sites to understand how local citizens interacted with current information artifacts
- We conducted door-to-door interviews with citizens near condemned properties
- We conducted stakeholder interviews with city clerks and inspectors to understand information flow
We took the data we collected and created both an affinity diagram and an information flow chart:
Key insights
The problem of urban blight was not tangible to the average Jacksonite. Citizens lacked access to the information necessary to see the macro-level problem of urban blight from the city's perspective.
Jackson citizens didn't understand why certain properties were being condemned or demolished. When observed from the outside alone, condemned properties look habitable. Citizens were entirely unaware of the numerous violations and uninhabitable conditions inside.
Citizens lacked an efficient channel to report condemned properties and gain feedback on individual properties as they progressed through the condemnation and demolition processes.