Project Goal

Communication

How can Uptown United better engage and communicate with their community and business partners, as well as inform them of the events and services they provide?

Research Methods

Observation

Our group of researchers set out to attended several events hosted by Uptown United, and or their partners. At these events we took note of everything we could using the AEIOU method of observation. This provided us with a framework for recording and classifying observations and information about our primary stakeholder’s activities, environments, interactions, objects and users.

Interview

We sat with, recorded and transcribed interviews with 5 different executives and partners of Uptown United. Each interview was then analyzed using inductive coding to find commonalities in themes and concepts that could direct us to a useful solution.

Survey

Our team conducted an online survey targeted at residence and business owners in Uptown, Chicago. The survey was used to collect quantitative data on how effective Uptown United’s current methods of communication and interaction are at reaching their desired audiences.

Affinity Diagram

Once our field research yielded an appropriate amount of data, we synthesized it all through an affinity diagram in order to reach design principles that would drive the development a useful solution.

 Central Themes

We concluded that our problem space had 4 central themes.

1. Social media and digital marketing challenges.

2. Obtaining useful feedback from the Uptown community.

3. Barriers to reaching and engaging directly with the Uptown community.

4. The important impact of online versus face-to-face communication.

Our Solution

Based on our research, we discovered that Uptown United faced several challenges with their current digital marketing strategies. This small organization wanted to reach a large audience but lacked the expertise and proper resources to use their communication platforms effectively. They also faced challenges when attempting to obtain feedback from not only their own business partners but community members as well.  

We also discovered the importance of offline interactivity between Uptown United and its primary stakeholders. Much of the organization’s communicative impact was being made by face-to-face interaction with their audiences either through events, networking or a scheduled meeting. These face-to-face interactions remain the most reliable means of communication for many of the community members and small businesses that rely on Uptown United’s efforts.

The research told us that Uptown United needed a tool for creating effective and digestible content for specific audiences through both online and offline platforms. To do this we created a content strategy guide that can be used by any Uptown United employee or volunteer. The plan book offers insights into the company’s core goals, key performance indicators and step-by-step guidance on how to publish ads. We also included personas of Uptown United’s primary stakeholders based on the analysis of survey data.

In order to address Uptown United’s problem of obtaining user feedback, we also created a business partner survey protocol; which can be used to guide Uptown United in drafting surveys with the proper language and resources that will yield the most useful results.

Conclusion

During the course of this project we had several senior designer guest speakers come in to discuss their experiences as researchers in the field of UX. One of our guest speakers said, “you’re not interviewing to understand what people like or desire, but interviewing to understand what motivates their behavior”, and that really stuck with me. I used this thought process during my group project with Uptown United. Our client’s issue was communicating with their audience and it was pivotal to understand how their consumer’s and business partners consumed media. We already knew that people would be interested in the events that Uptown United facilitated, but we needed to figure out why someone wouldn’t get the information that Uptown United disseminated. We found our solution in pain points regarding Uptown United’s social media advertisements and response rate.

Applying ethnographic methodologies we accessed Uptown United’s social media presence, including the types of posts and content that they publish on different platforms, and analyzed the types of interactions they have with their current followers. We used value sensitive design techniques by focusing on reiterating our experience mapping framework and incorporating journey mapping blueprint features to create a specialized deliverable more suited to benefit Uptown United. We also learned first-hand how our initial approach to community-based participatory research was falling short; mainly because we weren't engaging with the community and came off as intrusive. We corrected this by introducing ourselves, collaborating more and building a report with the community that we were researching.

We created a marketing content-strategy guide book, customer survey templates, and invaluable insight into Uptown United’s consumer base. All of which will help Uptown United, their employees, business partners and their consumers engage with each other and build a stronger community for all of Chicago.