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Project:
Northwestern Medicine
Construction Bronzeville Project
Overview:
Northwestern Medicine(NW) is expanding hospitals to different locations throughout Greater Chicago and included Bronzeville, IL. With this expansion, comes with concerns from the community: noise increase, pollution, traffic, etc. NW is focusing on being transparent towards the Bronzeville citizens by communicating all types of concerns and updating them throughout the progress of the construction.
Deliverables:
Bronzeville Weebly page
Mind map
Site Map
Content Audit
Wireframes
Goal
In order for NM to be clear with the community, we need to build a website that can be transparent with the status of the construction, site management that's easy for stakeholders to update themselves, alert the community for problems that might impact their way of life, and answer common questions to ease community concerns.
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Create a weebly template site that can inform the public about the construction
The Process
I used the UX Design Process technique with some modifications.
Disclaimer: I did not however, at the time of writing, had the chance to user test. This is still an ongoing project.
Research: Understanding the Problem
In order to figure out who the users are, I interviewed stakeholders to figure out what content currently exists from the past construction site (Old Irving Park), what went wrong with past site (if any), common questions citizens had, learn about valuable contents for users to read on the new site, and to clarify the goal of new site: create weebly template site to inform the public about the construction, and learn who the users are and their needs.
What I discovered from stakeholders:​
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Users are citizens, township leaders, and construction stakeholders.
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Previous construction site (Old Irving Park) did not notify the public well due to poor communication on site access.
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Primary goal was to be transparent with citizens so NM would not be blamed for not notifying the public quickly.
Talk with Users
I went out into the streets and talked with users in Bronzeville to see what their thoughts are about this new NM location. I had 6 citizens on the spot to have a 10 min dialog to hear them.
What I discovered:
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Users tend to ask a lot of questions revolving around the construction
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Will this increase noise?
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Traffic issues?
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Pollution build up?
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When this will be done?
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Most of the users were curious about:
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What specialty care would it provide?
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How will this hospital look like?
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Will this lower or increase my property value?
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Can this help my local business?
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Technical issues
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Where and how can I get updates about the construction?
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Content Strategy: Gather everything!
After gathering all my notes from stakeholders, users feedback, and existing content, I transferred them in a spreadsheet to audit all the data that's been presented. Every conversation and content is gathered in this unified excel, so that I can see what data exists and start to organize my mind map (continued below).
Information Architecture: Merge content into groups
Based on the spreadsheet, I learned repeating patterns and used them to plug in everything into a mind map. Which helped me to easily group and organize the contents for the next step: building out the site map.
Lay out the pages
From the mind map, figuring out the site map was a quick step once I saw what content could be grouped into each page.
Wireframe: Low to High
Once the architectural content was approved, I immediately moved into creating low fidelity wireframes and ran it by the stakeholders, in which they loved the layout.
Disclaimer: At this time of the project, I did not have the content yet to fill in the placeholders in the mid-high fidelity design.
Validate: Does it work?
Status: In Progress
Currently, what is shown here is still in the works. Once the design gets approved by stakeholders, I will then move to validate my designs with user testing. But in the meantime, I have taken all the notes from users needs and presented some of them below.
#1: Be in the loop
To tackle the need from users to be updated by the construction, this Project Update page is dedicated to see all historical alerts , notifications, and news posted by stakeholders.
#2: Showcase whats new
Users were curious of what specialty care will be provided in this new location. So a section was added on the Home Page for them to check the list of specialty care in this facility.
#3: Explain the process
Another curious thing users wanted to know is that, "How long will this take?" So I suggested having a section on home page that will explain detail description what stages of the construction will take place and how long each stage will take.
#4: How will the hospital look like?
I created a gallery page dedicated to showcase what this facility would look like once completed. Provide several of rendered images of the building, inside and out, to help users visualize it.
#5: Answer community concerns
From the data I have gathered from stakeholders and from users on the street, I have created a dedicated FAQ page to help users look up their concerns. Additionally, if users cannot see their question(s), they can submit one in a form.
Next Steps
Once the wireframe is approved, the next step will be:
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Work with content team to fill in the placeholders and start on user testing.
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Implement future features, 3D feature or video to help users take tour of the facility.
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Provide A/B testing to see what versions of layout is preferable.
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