FACILITATION + USER EXPERIENCE DESIGN

Dial-A-Park

How might we facilitate a conversation about public space with New Yorkers?

Our team aimed to facilitate a dialogue about public space in NYC. After initially encountering a low response rate to outreach, our team pivoted to reach a broader audience with lower barriers to participation. We designed "Dial-A-Park," an interactive website where users could leave voicemails or text messages for their parks. We collected 50+ unique perspectives, from which we created an audio collage, word cloud, and map of the parks. This project highlighted the importance of adaptation, flexible project planning, upfront team alignment, and embracing low-barrier formats to reach broader audiences.

PARSONS, PROJECT FACILITATION STUDIO, 2023
Group project, Master of Science degree in Strategic Design and Management

ROLES
Facilitator, Service Designer, Operations Leader

TEAM
Anupama Krishnan, Abbey Manliclic, Kritchaporn Kulrattanarak, Pattra Sikkamann

Overview

Background

This project was conducted with a group for our Project Facilitation Studio at Parsons. The goal of the project was to design and facilitate a dialogue about public space including voices from The New School Community and beyond.

Team Structure

Our team did not have formally defined roles but we gravitated toward certain, informal focuses. We each facilitated meetings and activities at different stages of the project, shared the administrative and marketing tasks, and provided feedback to one another. Given my background, I directed the operations and logistics of the project including sourcing and vetting external tools and creating a process for maintaining the audio uploads. I also wrote the majority of the copy and produced the final audio collage. Pattra acted as our creative director and was the illustrator behind the majority of the images. Tik supported Pattra in the creative, drew additional images, and oversaw parts of project management. Abbey owned the majority of the web design and product requirement documents. Anupama built and managed the website.

Design Process

Ideation

Our team decided to focus on NYC Parks. After we received low response rate to our initial outreach, our team pivoted to focus on low-barrier-to-entry forms of participation in the dialogue we were looking to foster. I designed and was the primary facilitator of a session to identify potential methods to pursue our research questions. After exploring the benefits and challenges of various options, we ultimately decided to move forward with Dial-A-Park.

Definition

Inspired by podcasting voicemail services, Dial-A-Park asked New Yorkers to call a park and leave a voicemail telling the park what they love about it, and what they wish were different. To make the experience more interactive, we decided to create a website to host these voicemails and allow participants to hear what others had contributed as well.

Website Product Requirements Documentation & Sketching

Design

Identified research questions best suited to the audio format - we decided to keep it open ended to encourage participation
Determined the visual language and art direction of the project
Created a journey map to identify potential friction points and encourage people to call in
Sourced and vetted external tools (Speakpipe, Soundcloud)
Created a journey map to identify potential friction points and encourage people to call in
Created product requirement documents and designed the website
Wrote copy for the website and posters
Disseminated information and marketed the project via posters, social media, direct outreach

Feedback and Iteration

Feedback from peers and users suggested that discomfort with the medium and hesitance to hear their own voices recorded was hindering participation. In response, we added a text option on the website.

Delivery

We collected over 45 voicemails and 5 text responses from participants. We used AI tools to transcribe the voicemails and identify keywords. We created a word cloud and map of the mentioned parks from these results. Finally, we produced and edited an audio collage of excerpts from the voicemails. All the voicemails and other assets created are available on our website.

Challenges and Lessons Learned

The major challenge we faced on this project was the low response rate we received to our initial outreach. We overcame this by re-defining the brief and reaching out to a broader audience with an ask that required less of participants than a traditional interview or facilitation.

We had to pivot multiple times during this project in response to challenges that arose, which was made significantly easier due to the work we did upfront to establish working norms.

We kicked off the project with a community agreement that established written rules and values but also allowed us to learn about how to operate as a team and navigate roadblocks. This project made real to me the impact that kickoffs and early alignment can have on projects.