UPTOWN UNITED

PROJECT OVERVIEW

I worked with Uptown United, a non profit community economic development organization serving the entire Uptown, Chicago business community. Over the course of three months, we employed a design ethnographic approach to understand the current needs of Uptown United directors and Uptown business and community members. This research approach aided our team in developing unique and creative solutions to help Uptown United achieve their digital marketing and communication goals.

Project Goals

• How can we help Uptown United better engage and communicate with their diverse community and business partners?

• How can we help Uptown United increase awareness of and engagement in the several events and services they provide their community?

Methods

User Interviews, Field Observations, Thematic Analysis, Interview Coding, Journey Mapping, Persona Development, Competitive Analysis, Heuristic Analysis

 Research Process

Our team employed a design ethnographic research approach to improve Uptown United’s current communication, marketing, and social media strategies. We incorporated several frameworks such as community-based participatory research (CBPR), value sensitive design (VSD), online ethnography techniques, and activity theory.

Below is an overview of each of the several research methods we employed:

Uptown United had completed previous survey and marketing research with local Uptown businesses and community members. Our team analyzed the business surveys and market research from the previous five years to learn more about how local businesses engaged with Uptown United and learn about the different types of feedback they were receiving about their business networking events, how they current reached out and obtained feedback from business and community members, and how they typically design, recruit, and implement their yearly surveys.

This initial research helped us understand some of the several challenges they had obtaining feedback from their diverse community and led to the design and implementation of our survey protocol guide aimed at improving their current survey design strategy and increasing participation in their yearly surveys.

Our team conducted several observation sessions at Uptown United community events and within the Uptown community. During our observations, we conducted several contextual inquiries where we questioned Uptown business and community members to learn more about their involvement and interactions with Uptown United directors, their thoughts and feedback related to their several networking and community events, and their opinion regarding Uptown United current communication and marketing strategies.

Our team conducted several interviews with Uptown United Directors, community members, and local business chamber members. These interviews provided crucial insights regarding the unique and diverse characteristics, needs, and challenges of Uptown United staff, business partners, and local community members .

This outcomes of our research helped us develop our chamber experience map detailing the stages and challenges of chamber member involvement and create the several business and consumer personas to aid in effective marketing and advertising strategies.

Our team developed a survey to learn more about Uptown residents' social media habits and their awareness of and engagement in Uptown United events. The survey results provided key insights into the several different platforms and mediums that Uptown residents use to learn about and engage in Uptown United’s community events.

The results of the survey helped our team determine how to create an effective social media and marketing strategy guide and determine the most appropriate social media listening tools that would help Uptown United staff obtain the most feedback from their business and community members.

Synthesis & Analysis

My team utilized several tools and methods to analyze and synthesize the quantitative and qualitative data that we gathered after each round of the primary research. These methods included affinity diagramming, inductive coding analysis, and insight, theme, and design principle development. These methods helped us frame our synthesize our research data to generate impactful design insights, themes, and principles which led to the design of our specialized solutions that would improve Uptown United’s communication, marketing and social media strategies.

Below is a overview of our the methods and tools we used to analyze and synthesize our observation, interview, and survey data:

Affinity Diagramming

We created affinity diagrams as a method to organize and categorize the data gathered from our observations, contextual inquiries, and interviews with Uptown United Staff, local businesses, and community members.

We used these insights and major trends to begin to develop the initial inductive coding categories and develop preliminary insights and themes that would lead to the design of business and consumer personas, social media marketing guide, social listening tool comparative analysis, and survey protocol guide we created that would help improve Uptown United’s current digital communication and marketing strategies.

Inductive Coding Analysis

We developed several initial coding categories from our previous affinity diagramming sessions that were used in our inductive coding process. We used Dedoose to systematically and inductively code over 22 hours of observation and interview data with Uptown United Staff, local business owners, and community members to develop key design insights, themes and principles that provided the necessary research and foundation for our several solutions and recommendations.

Based on our inductive coding analysis, our team developed a total of 27 different insights from the observation, survey and interview data analysis. Of those 27 total insights we were able to develop 4 central themes related to the communication, marketing, and social media issues that Uptown United was currently facing. These insights were the basis for developing the several solutions, recommendations, and strategies that are presented below.

• SOCIAL MEDIA & DIGITAL MARKETING CHALLENGES

  • Uptown United faced several challenges with their current digital marketing strategies.

    • Their current social media efforts were not effectively reaching a large portion of Uptown businesses.

    • Their small volunteer team was often too busy to focus on and educate themselves about social media advertising methods and strategies.

    • They did not have the resources to employ a dedicated marketing or social media team.

• OBTAINING FEEDBACK FROM THE UPTOWN COMMUNITY

  • Uptown United Directors has expressed the challenges they had obtaining feedback about their events and communication methods from both Uptown business and community members.

    • Related to what comes out of the networking events and the potential connections businesses make.

    • Concerning business member wants & needs to provide events better suited to meet those needs.

    • Obtain and aggregate opinions from their community members to evaluate how people feel about Uptown and its several events.

• BARRIERS TO REACHING & ENGAGING WITH THE UPTOWN COMMUNITY

  • Uptown United faces several challenges & barriers trying to effectively communicate and target their diverse community.

    • Difficulty marketing advertising to community members and business owners that speak over 90 different languages.

    • There is a large portion of the community that are less technologically “savvy”.

    • Businesses often too busy to keep track of Uptown United’s several digital marketing and promotional methods.

• IMPACT & IMPORTANCE OF OFFLINE (FACE TO FACE) COMMUNICATION

  • Offline communication is very important not only for local businesses, but also the Uptown United's current marketing and communication methods

    • Uptown business members tend to learn more about networking events through word of mouth, attending other Uptown United events, and offline promotional strategies.

    • Uptown United staff focus heavily on promoting and advertising their events through face to face connections and connecting with potential chamber members.

We developed a total of 4 design principles that would be the most impactful and useful when designing and developing potential solutions to help mitigate the current marketing, communication, and social media issues of Uptown United.

A SUCCESSFUL SOLUTION WILL…

• Allow Uptown United to communicate effectively to their diverse target audiences, offering an increased participation to generate more revenue for events for the Uptown community.

• Allow Uptown United staff to further educate themselves on current digital and social media marketing principles and methods to create effective advertisements for the events and services they provide.

• Provide Uptown United with an easy and understandable method to gather and organize information and feedback from their community and business members.

• Allow Uptown United to leverage their impactful offline connections with Uptown business members to increase involvement and participation in their current social media and digital marketing and communication strategies.

 Mapping the Experience

We developed an experience map from the data gathered from interviews with local Uptown businesses and contextual inquiries at Uptown United networking events. This map was used to help Uptown United staff understand and evaluate some of the potential marketing and communication issues faced at each stage of chamber member involvement. Additionally, this map helped our team determine opportunities for growth and improvement within the different stages of chamber member involvement with Uptown United.

• Each row of the map is comprised of the actions, touch-points, thoughts, and quotes of experienced in each stage.

• The last row contains the opportunities to improve current marketing and communication issues at each stage of involvement and interaction.

• The touch points have been color coded to demonstrate the preferred channels of each business persona type at the different stages of involvement and interaction. The are Business Personas color coded can be found at the bottom of the experience map.

 Persona Development

We developed several personas based on data accumulated from the secondary research, observations, interviews, contextual inquiries and survey data. These personas were created to help Uptown United staff understand the diverse and unique characteristics of Uptown business and community members so they could formulate more effective marketing, communication, and social media strategies.

Our team developed a total of 5 personas:

• Three Uptown business personas which emphasized their use of social media and other online platforms and their overall awareness, interaction, and involvement with Uptown United.

• Two Uptown consumer/resident personas that emphasized their preferred media platforms and their awareness of and involvement in Uptown community events.

Business Personas

Consumer Personas

Solutions & Recommendations

Digital Marketing/Social Media Strategy Guide

Due to our observation and interview analysis, our team was able to uncover that that Uptown United faces several challenges such as limited staff, lack of advertising experience, and are often to busy to create effective marketing and social media strategies to reach their diverse business community.

We created a Digital Marketing Strategy & Social Media Marketing Plan to help inform and educate Uptown United staff regarding social media branding and to help them effectively and efficiently create content for social media advertisements to reach their diverse, multilingual target business and consumer audience.

Click the image to view the full digital marketing strategy guide.

Comparative Analysis: Social Media Management Tools

Based on our initial interviews and observations with Uptown United staff, we were able to uncover their current challenges with effectively obtaining feedback from their community members due to their extremely diverse and multilingual business community and the limited marketing and social media staff. We determined that an effective social media listening/management tool would be a quick and effective method to obtaining feedback from their diverse, multilingual community on different social media sites (e.g. facebook, twitter, yelp) and would not require extra staff to implement and manage.

We conducted a comparative analysis of over eighteen social media management tools to help Uptown United increase user engagement on their online social platforms. Our decision were based on pricing plans, learnability of the software, and the type of analytic features they provided. We finalized our recommendation of 3 tools that we believed would offer the best price, functionality, and ease-of-use for Uptown United staff. Click the image to view the entire competitive analysis.

Survey Protocol Guide

Our initial secondary research, observations with Uptown United Directors, and interviews with local businesses demonstrated that they had difficulty creating effective surveys to obtainuseful feedback and had very low participation rate from their local business and consumer community.

We created a survey protocol guide that could be used when developing, organizing, and structuring any and all surveys for Uptown United.

The Survey Protocol Guide includes principles, guidelines, and templates for survey design and implementation that will not only improve the feedback that they are receiving, but will also increase the overall participation and motivation to complete Uptown United surveys. Click the image to view the full Survey Protocol Guide.

Heuristic Analysis: ExploreUptown.org

We provided the heuristic evaluation to demonstrate their strong website presence and need to focus on improving other crucial aspects of their digital communication and marketing strategies. We broke the evaluation down into two stages: A first pass to identify potential issues and sections that were done well and a second pass to determine the severity of issues and general recommendations for improvement. Below is a preview of the heuristic evaluation that we conducted and presented to Uptown United staff.

 Conclusion & Reflection

The practical experience I gained applying this design ethnographic approach with Uptown United and the Uptown community was invaluable in my progression as a UX professional. Simply through utilizing these research techniques and applying both VSD and CBPR frameworks while observing, interviewing, and surveying, has made me a more empathetic listener, mindful observer, and efficient designer and researcher. However, it has also highlighted how these research and design techniques will always be something that I will be iterating and improving throughout my UX career.

Working with Uptown United has made me more self-aware of my own goals as a UX professional and the type of career path I would like to take. After applying these ethnographic techniques while working with Uptown United, I have grown to truly appreciate and enjoy conducting observations, interviews, and getting out into the field. It has shown me that while this type of qualitative research can be difficult and frustrating, it is extremely rewarding to uncover insights and design solutions that will hopefully impact and improve someone’s daily life and relationship with technology.

Additionally, through my work with Uptown United and learning about other mission driven organizations’ missions, I have become more interested in working in a community service orientated and non-profit sphere. I would like to know that the research and design work that I am doing is geared towards helping improve the quality of life of others less fortunate than myself and hopefully improving our world gradually in the process.