Civic Dinners
Civic Dinners is a community engagement platform that brings people together for conversations that matter. Their platform makes it fun and easy for organizations to launch community conversations that help make significant issues more relevant, personable, and actionable.
Scope and constraints
Three-week group sprint in a team of three
Lead UX Researcher
Marvel
Figma
Miro
Roles and responsibilities
Tools used
Problem statement
Users want a way to engage with their community by sharing their voices and learning from new perspectives. Users need a way to have meaningful conversations with people from different backgrounds with whom they may not typically connect.
How might we..
Implement a more thorough onboarding process to ensure users are connected to different perspectives to have meaningful conversations in an inclusive space?
Problem statement
methods used
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Heuristic
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Competitive and comparative analyses
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Research Plan
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Complete interviews
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Persona
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Journey map
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User flow
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Problem statement and how might we
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Navigation Scheme
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Low fidelity prototyping
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High Fidelity prototyping
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Global research report
Foundational Research
Heuristic evaluation
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The wording on some sections caused confusion
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​Example: being prompted to attend a dinner before Explaining what the dinners are
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Dinner topics are not real as to what they are about
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Example: Happy hour, common ground, and inclusion and belonging
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There is no way to filter topics or dinners
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No way to see if dinners are diverse
current shopper demographic
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Eighteen to Forty years old for personal users
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Business partners that tend to be forty and older
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Someone that wants to see different perspectives
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A person looking to be involved in discussions of current events
Chloe Carter
a young professional who is growing into her own voice.
Persona
Bio
Age-30
Relationship- Single
Location- Atlanta GA
Career- Hospitality Professional
Behavior
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Stays informed with social media, but also consumes traditional news media like TV and NPR
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Cares deeply about the Black Lives Matter movement, but also focuses on other social justice issues
Frustrations
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Feels disconnected from her community due to the global pandemic
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Hesitates when it comes to engaging with different perspectives, but wants to have meaningful conversation
Goals and needs
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To be fully informed before making a commitment to join a website
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To hear from and engage with diverse groups directly
What were users thoughts on the original site?
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Most expected to be asked more demographic information during the sign-up process
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The platform is a great idea. The idea of having access to these different groups
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People wanted to learn more about the host or the attendees
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People were frustrated because they couldn't easily find the topics using the current navigation
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Users don't understand what the benefits of signing up are
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Because of a lack of understanding, many introverts were disinterested or hesitant to use the site​
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What are users looking for?
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A way to see something about who is hosting.​
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Diverse conversations
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A way to tell others about themselves and to learn about others before selecting a dinner
Primary Research
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The landing page, onboarding process, and user profile and/or dashboard tools of Civic Dinners, Meetup, Death Over Dinner, and LunchClub were evaluated by a team member.
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Meetup offers the most extensive feature offering to users, including the ability to log in using third-party credentials from Facebook, Google, and Apple and to find meetings based on geolocation data.
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Civic Dinners is the only platform analyzed that does not have an onboarding process beyond contact information.
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Death over Dinner handles a sensitive conversation topic and offers guidance and customized feedback throughout the onboarding process.
So, Where are we starting?
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1. Call to action button copy was unclear
2. There is no difference between the landing page and a signed in landing page other than the name showing on the top right
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3. During onboarding, users expected to provide demographic data to personalize the experience.
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4. Information such as location can not be set to privite
5. There is no way to get to know fellow users or host
Round one-making a personal experience
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1. Made clear sign-up call to action buttons.
2. Giving an overview of the site process tested positively.
3. With is information at the front, users were more comfortable as they knew what to expect.
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4. A progress bar was added to let users know exactly what was going to be asked of them.
5. While some older users enjoyed the ability to sign in with Facebook, younger users were looking for a secondary option such as signing in with Google.
6. Users found inputting their phone number as excessive.
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7. Users liked that the information was clearly labeled as optional.
8. The percentage progress bar was either missed or seen as excessive by users.
9. While these questions were overall well received, many did not feel comfortable disclosing their employer.
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10. A welcome was added to show a difference between a signed in landing page.
11. Users were unsure how they already had an up coming dinner selected.
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10. Many did not see the edit your profile button.
11. Those that did notice the edit button also wondered why there was not a settings option.
12. A bio was added so other users could get to know each other at a quick glance. Ideally, this would show under a users name when they sign up for a dinner.
13.Users were unclear if this data is private on the profile and what that means.
Round two- Low fidelity prototype
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1. All call-to-action buttons are kept the same color.
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2. It was unclear if the icons were clickable. Perhaps due to the color of them.
3. Percentage progress bar was removed.
4. We wanted to give users a clear reason as to why and why their information would be used.
5. While this did test very well, the about of text could be edited to be shorted. A few users were disinterested in reading so much text.
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6. To be sure no one was labeled as "other" all demographic information can be typed in. There are auto-populated answers as shown above but users can type any combination they wish.
7. Partner codes became a temporary fix to inputting a user's job. Affiliate partners would give their employees a code so they can be directed to company-linked discussions.
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8. Landing page image is different to further separate the main landing page from the signed-in one.
9. Because no dinners were selected, a prompt to add one was added rather than showing one.
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10. All aspects of the profile are blue for cohesion
11. All items are set to private by default as the onboarding process indicated.
12. Instructions as to what the locks are and how they function were added.
13. A lock was selected for a visual cue as to private and public information.
14. Text and lock would turn black when made public.
15. Setting button was added.
16. Edit buttons were moved and made bold for visibility.
Reflections
Bringing more to the table
The final iteration of the website tested every well. Users were overall interested in the prospects of the site. While there were many positive aspects, there are also still areas to improve. Users were interested in a search and filter function. ​Users wanted the ability to completely omit dinners that they were not interested in to further tailor the homepage. Having the ability to search for this such as a specific host or topic could provide clearer navigation rather than clicking every discussion topic to see what is available.
what i enjoyed about this project
Civic Dinners has created a platform for people who are socially aware and active. Given that COVID-19 has created physical barriers, a service like this can help fill the gaps in social connection folks may be missing. Being able to be a part of something that can bridge many gaps is amazing.