City of Bellaire Mobile App*

Problem

With the prevalence of smart phone usage, the City of Bellaire's residents have become dissatisfied with accessing the website or calling various departments to perform basic tasks such as paying bills and reserving athletic facilities.

Solution

Develop a phone app that alleviates the need to visit the website for utilitarian tasks.

Research and Development

Information architecture analysis, user survey, competitive evaluation, user flow development, usability testing

My Role

Researcher, UI development, user tester

Deliverables

IA for mobile app, three user flows, paper prototype, user tests, mid-fidelity wireframes

Screenshot of City of Bellaire Website

To App or Not to App?

I’m a big believer in mobile-first, mobile-only websites. One codebase to test. One interface for the user to learn. During the discovery phase, I learned that by law, the city needs to post all their meeting mumbo-jumbo, ordinances and by-laws on the site.

After interviewing the citizens, I discovered that they primarily use the website to: pay bills, pay parking tickets, reserve tennis courts, see when the pool is open and find heavy trash pickup day. I determined that an app would best meet their needs. To that end, I focused on develop user flows and a UI that would take place in an app.

User Flows

Though five scenarios came up I focused on the broader ideas. Pay a bill, reserve a facility and waste pickup. Once easy-to-use primary flows were developed, they could be fleshed out to address specific issues like the type of bill (utility vs. ticket), the type of facility (paid vs. free) and calendar entry (waste pickup vs. library hours). The user flows screens pictured below probably might whet your appetite but what you'll get a better sense of the project if you flip through the final documentation. The video will give you a sense of my approach.

Pay bills

Reserve a Facility

View Waste Pickup Schedule

Final Documentation

city-of-bellaire-app-final-documentation-Read-Only.pdf

City of Bellaire Mobile App PDF

Dec 10, 2018 7:21 PM.webm

Narrated Demo of Final Project

*This was a school project for my MS in Interactive Media at Quinnipiac University. If the City of Bellaire had hired me for this work, it is the approach I would have taken.