An extension of ongoing efforts to increase mobility options and reduce our impact on the environment, the Los Angeles TDM Calculator bridges the gap between real estate developers affected by the Mobility Plan 2035 legislation and LADOT's efficient processing and response to these professionals.
In 2015, the Los Angeles city council approved a new blue print for the city's future transit plans which required the cooperation of both public transportation providers as well as real estate developers to create a more mobile and eco-conscious city.
Previously, many of the legislation involving real estate development did not include smaller developers working on small-scale projects. However, Mobility 2035 now affects some of these users and while LADOT has managed thus far using traditional paper processes, the operation can be optimized and improved to include an easier transition for new users as well as reduce bandwidth on the processing teams.
After our kick-off meeting with the client, I wanted to begin defining constraints and creating focus. To achieve this, I reviewed meeting notes and identified who our users are. I followed this up with interviews and questionnaires to better understand areas of opportunity and improvement.
Who the users are:
LADOT's goals:
To visualize my research synthesis and to align my team and stakeholders with a top-level view of our challenge, I create personas for our 2* user types.
* A 3rd user type was identified in meetings with our development team but given the scope of our client's ask, was pushed further down the development pipeline.
At the request of our client, I reviewed San Francisco's TDM Tool to understand what our client is referencing for their own product. I also took this opportunity to conduct a usability audit to identify areas that we can improve in our own solution.
My evaluation uncovered a number of usability issues on San Francisco's tool, but the most apparent issue I noticed was the information density of the site and the jargon-laden measures that lacked accessible context and explanation. Users have to click on each individual measure to open a PDF document specific to that measure to learn more about it.
To create team alignment and to incorporate stakeholders in the design process, I worked with our consultants to conduct a design studio to prioritize features that would address the client's goals while addressing the usability issues I uncovered.
Unpacking all of these factors required a high degree of collaboration with the LADOT team and their clients (our two user types). To prepare for our collaborative effort, I set up a remote open card sort exercise through Trello and disseminated the deck to the rest of my team. This allowed us to work in real time or asynchronously, depending the availability of our Users.
Using the information from our open card sort and guided by the top level tasks our client wants to accomplish, I define a site architecture with industry standard categories as a foundation.
Drawing from our research and ongoing conversations with the client, our team realized that while 'Super Users' (users who are familiar with the process and can navigate these new guidelines on a digital platform) are a part of our User base, there will be many who are not as familiar and it is this demographic that we need to capture with our product. I begin to sketch and explore the web application as an on-boarding wizard with lo-fidelity wireframes.
To ensure that our product remains task-driven, I also created a scenario that incorporates the the main features that we wanted our MVP to include:
Using this scenario as a guide, I create a User Flow to capture what a User's journey through the application should look like given the parameters of our MVP.
With feedback from our client, I begin to digitize my sketches into mid-fidelity wireframes. I incorporate design principles that consider effective use of white space, visual balance between elements, and functionality.
As guidelines for the development of the project's own unique visual identity, I was provided with the style guide for Los Angeles City as well as LADOT. Using both, I created a new style guide and UI component library to help both developers and other designers build any number of screens with consistency and ease.
With approval from the client to move forward, I begin preparing high-fidelity wireframes for a clickable prototype. The clickable prototype will serve as both our client's proof of concept as well as guide developers with the project's interaction design.
Our client's meeting with the Los Angeles Council was a success with the integration of the project's clickable prototype. This allows us to move into phase two with our development team and begin designing features for administrators. The project currently in alpha testing and you can view it below.
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