CITY ART

Connecting the 'City of Sydney' Council to its public art community

the brief

Help City of Sydney understand its community's views about the public art initiative,

‘City Art’, so it can prioritise investments and maximise community experiences.

our process

• understand ‘engagement’

​

• create opportunities for engagement

​

• identify ways to measure engagement 

step 1: discover

ooooooooooooooooo 

what 

questions, questions, questions...

surveys

emojics

polls

public forums

reviews

interviews

questionnaires

insight: people are giving feedback all the time

insight: the community loves public art and wants to know more about it

what are they saying?

feedback synthesisation & affinity mapping

obstacles

environment

feelings

influences

influences

what are they doing?

archetypes

what information is available to them?

heuristic evaluation

no account

instagram

twitter

and how does this compare to other world class cities?

competitive analysis

We researched the touchpoints of other world class cities...

New York
San Francisco
London
Melbourne

​

It was noted that all four cities had a strong presence across websites, social media, apps and in situ way-finding initiatives.

They were in turn using these channels to engage extensively with their community.

insights: 

there is currently no clear ways to engage with City Art.

​

the community is confused, frustrated and disengaged.

​

the best way to gain meaningful feedback is to start with the quantitative options, to first understand what people are actually engaging with.

​

possible solutions

feature prioritisation

Based on all of our research, we were able to now visualise which identified engagement tools would best meet both the community and City of Sydney's needs...

so what does this all mean?

hypothesis

if

we align 'The City of Sydney' + 'City Art' brands

and then use this alignment across all existing/available touchpoints

​

then

we will be able to gather engagement metrics and in turn, valuable feedback

because

our research has shown that the community is interested in public art and both comfortable and willing to engage via these touchpoints

​

​

a day in the life of...

retrospective journey map

To demonstrate this, the archetype ‘Connect’ was chosen as the most motivated to use digital channels

but wait, imagine if...

service blueprint

Visualising what it would look like if there were steps in place to connect a community member’s curiosity with public art information, creating enduring links to both the council but also the wider community.

​

Outlining the infrastructure, communication and digital components required for engagement and meaningful feedback to occur between City Art and its community.

then it could look like this...

prospective journey map

first steps

Once the The City of Sydney + City Art brands are clearly aligned, then City Art can engage with its community more effectively .

This engagement needs to start with the more organic engagement tools, so as to first understand what people are actually engaging with.

The easiest way to achieve this is to utilise those quantitative channels that are not only already available to City of Sydney, but also readily used and valued by its community.

​

​

​

​

here's how we do it?

1.   Align City Art + City of Sydney branding​

2.   Make City Art website link easily accessible from the City of Sydney website

3.   Create City Art social media accounts: Instagram, Twitter and Facebook, linked back to the City Art website   (and removing defunct Google+ link)

4.   Create geotag links and relevant hashtags to all City Art artworks across all social media accounts

5.   Use a social listening tools to gather metrics e.g Hootsuite, Sprout or Keyhole

6.   Schedule 3 months review, to discuss initial quantitative engagement metrics 

7.   Use these initial quantitative engagement metrics to tailor other qualitative engagement options, to gain more specific feedback.

and here's how it would look...

Demonstrating all the engagement that can happen from the inclusion of just one hashtag on Instagram, linking to other Instagram users, geotags, the City Art website and the broader City of Sydney community.

City Art website redesign

​

City Art app design

​

Installation of uniform plaques and wayfinding tools across all artworks, featuring aligned branding and information links i.e website, QR codes and beacons that link to the City Art app’s map

​the client

The City of Sydney’s operating structure is both broad and deep. The biggest challenge in regards to this client was devising a solution that was not only effective, but realistically achievable within the limitations presented by this infrastructure.

​

​the community

The community is extremely diverse and their interactions with the City of Sydney are quite varied. The biggest challenge we faced here was that, whist they felt strong ties to and would really value clear channels for communication, they don’t have the time or inclination to chase it down if it’s not made readily available to them.

​

​me

I really enjoyed the ethnographic nature of this study, as I felt it aligned well with my UX strengths for empathy, analysis, critical thinking, ideation and problem solving.