Michelle Reyes Portfolio

Purpose

Academic

Human-Computer Interaction Capstone Project

Team

Roles

Marissa H., Project Lead, UX Research and Design
Claire Y., UX Research and Design
Emme Y., UX Research and Design
Michelle R., UX Research and Design

Overview

Problem Statement

Legislation and the legislative process are complex and can be difficult to follow. As a result, civically motivated people are less likely to follow and participate in local government.

Goals

Provide a tool that makes it easy for Chicago residents to find, understand, and engage with legislation and the legislative process.

Context of Use

Mobile-first application

Target Users

City of Chicago residents
18 years and older
Interested in increasing their level of political awareness

Product Features

Personalized Notifications
AI Legislative Assistant
AI Comment Wizard

The Challenges

Design a user interface that makes it easy for users to follow legislation
Design features that deconstruct legislation and the legislative process
Conduct qualitative and quantitative usability testing within the course timeline

The Benefit

A real-time tool that tracks legislative updates and public hearings
An AI Legislative Assistant that summarizes and contextualizes legislation in plain language
An AI Comment Wizard that drafts comments and provides a direct path to send feedback to bill sponsors

The Process

Research

Academic Journals

Eight multi-disciplinary

Simplifying the law, citizen participation, local government, e-participation, legal informatics

Articles

Five industry sources

Understanding legislation, local government, ethics, plain language, word frequency

Reports

One government source

Definitions, organizational elements of a bill, understanding legislation, statutory interpretation

	Office of the City Clerk (eLMS)	Chicago Councilmatic	Chicago Daily Law Bulletin
Chicago-based	✅	✅	✅
Personalized Feed	X	X	X
Legislative Summaries	X	X	X
Public Comment Feature	X	X	X

Research Objective

Understand how people comprehend and engage with local legislation, and identify opportunities where technology could facilitate or improve the process

Researchers

One interviewer and two notetakers

Participants

Four experts

Research Objective

Observe how City of Chicago residents use the internet to search for, review, summarize, and engage with local legislation

Researchers

One interviewer and one notetaker

Participants

Four City of Chicago residents

Task Prompts

Warm-up Questions

What device(s) do you use to find local legislation?
Have you ever searched for local legislation online?
Have you ever downloaded a legislative or city services app?

Tasks

For the first task, please show us how you would search for local legislation.
For the second task, please take a few moments to review this local resolution.
For the third task, please summarize the local resolution and describe its status.

Deep Focus

Were any of the tasks or websites challenging or confusing?
Was any of the language unfamiliar or confusing to understand?
Would any information help to simplify this process for you in the future?

Affinity Diagram

Research Objective

Proactively identify and design for malicious intent and blind spots

Data Collection

Google Form

Prompt

Brainstorm potential misuses for the Personalized Notifications, AI Legislative Assistant, and/or AI Comment Wizard features

Participants

Forty-one participants from the team's professional network and the DePaul University Jarvis College of Computing and Digital Media participation pool for students, researchers, and community members

Data Analysis

Reviewed and clustered responses using an affinity diagram

Example Insights

Personalized Notifications

Users can receive notifications without providing consent
Feature can be used to disseminate false information
Geography-based updates may feel intrusive

AI Legislative Summarizer

Summaries can be biased, incorrect, or incomplete
Automation dismisses the need for human oversight
Users may not understand the impact of the summaries

AI Comment Wizard

Feature can be used to draft biased summaries
Feature can be used to flood legislative forums
Feature can be used to impersonate individuals

Legislative Tracking

Sharing sponsor's name can lead to a privacy issue
Feature can be used to spread false information
Feature can be used to oppress or reinforce ideas

Synthesis

Meet Coretta

Tagline: “I live in Chicago and try to keep up with local changes that impact me, my city, and my neighborhood.”

MyChicago App Persona One Description - Phoebe

Meet Gloria

Tagline: “I'm a college student who's interested in government systems.”

MyChicago App Persona One Description - Lindsey

Coretta's Journey

Gloria's Journey

Ideation

Sketches

MyChicago App

Purpose

Academic

Team

Roles

Overview

Problem Statement

Goals

Context of Use

Target Users

Product Features

The Challenges

The Benefit