Focus on the User Experience (UX) for cities and communities
One key success factor for transforming cities and neighborhoods is to move from a focus on a "master plan" to a one of "eyes on the street" that focus on the perspective of a dweller or a visitor, instead of those of architects, engineers or other urban planners.
We must start by exploring the place, , moving from the master planner's offices to the neighborhood streets and dwellings and listening to residents, visitors and other stakeholders/
That first exploration phase provides two key elements for re-thinking a neighborhood or a city: (1) a "human dimension" of the place as an experience (EX) (not just a drawing or a picture) and (2) engaging the actual end users -residents, visitors, investors- as active co-creators of the new EX.
But the "eyes" of a single user -not matter how sensitive- are not enough to capture and mobilize a complex 50,000-strong community, with multiple "users" such as residents, visitors and investors, on top of neighboring neighborhoods.
City Doctors starts by defining a shared vision with all stakeholders based on what they want for themselves and their children, for as Thomas Burke stated it, "society is a contract among the dead, the living and the unborn". That sets what we call the "Mega" goals and metrics that the program will pursue. Based on them, we can work on identifying the User Experience (UX) key components that the place and community must have in order to make that Mega vision real.
The core of the design is the Client / User Experience (UX) which includes the processes -housing, economic activities, education, security, healthcare, and transportation among others-, the people -households, groups- logistics -infrastructure such as light, power, sanitation, sewers, waste management- and technology -from Internet Access, phones, ATMs and so on-. It is the basic Client Experience what defines and coordinates all these factors.
And based on that UX/Client Experience's "Moments of Truth" (when, how, how much, whom) we can align and coordinate an array of suppliers in multiple supply chains:
The focus of the transformation program is in the User Experience (UX) of residents, visitors and stakeholders:
The User Experience (UX) becomes the "script" for implementation, as in the case of Barrio 31, Buenos Aires:
For more information on this and other projects, contact the Performance Improvement Institute
