Bridging Families at Davis City Hall
Making the city hall experience more engaging for families through field research, interviews, and prototype testing with town residents
- Role
- Human-Centered Researcher
- Methods
- Field Research, Prototype Testing, Experience Design
- Team
- 4 Researchers
- Timeline
- January 2025 - March 2025
overview
Davis City Hall
This case study comes from my Human-Centered Design class at UC Davis. Our Winter Quarter assignment was to apply the Human-Centered Design process to a real civic space: the interior hallway of Davis City Hall.
Davis City Hall is where residents go to handle administrative work — everyone from business contractors to families with young kids passes through. Our goal was to reimagine the space so it actually reflected the values of the city and the people who use it.
Impact
We conducted field research with Davis residents, designed and tested a prototype based on what we learned, and presented a final set of recommendations directly to Davis City Hall staff.
I led interview scheduling and synthesis, empathy mapping and insight development, and collaborated with my team to design and test the early-stage prototype with residents.
7
interviews in the field with real town residents
4
prototypes tested in the field
15
residents tested the prototypes
in-person visit
Administratively functional but emotionally flat
Before talking to a single resident, we walked through Davis City Hall ourselves. We found a building that was administratively functional but emotionally flat: community bulletin boards buried in a side hallway, stained-glass art that went unnoticed, and a lobby that felt more like a waiting area than a civic space.
Why this mattered
Starting with observation grounded our questions in the actual physical space instead of guesses about it, and gave our team shared context before we had a single conversation with a resident.
resident interviews
Understanding how families actually experience City Hall
We interviewed 7 Davis residents, 5 long-term residents and 2 graduate students aged 26-70, to understand how families and community members experience Davis City Hall, and where the space falls short of the community's values.
A City Hall that doubles as a space for families to spend time together, not just process errands
We built our audience persona around Anh (a pseudonym, to protect resident privacy): a 64-year-old retired teacher and community volunteer who's lived in Davis for over 20 years. She visits for monthly paperwork, but wants it to be a space where she can bring her kids and family to spend time together.
QUOTE 1 FROM ANH
“The only nice thing is the people.”
QUOTE 2 FROM ANH
“There isn’t anything to do while they [kids] wait.”
QUOTE 3 FROM ANH
“No social warmth.”
Families come to City Hall out of obligation, not choice
We synthesized interview data into an empathy map to pressure-test what we were hearing before jumping to solutions. The pattern that emerged: families show up because they have to, and there's nothing built for the time they're forced to spend there. That sharpened into our design question:
How might we redesign the City Hall entrance hallway so families feel they belong, turning a routine visit into a shared memory that builds civic pride?
prototyping
Picking the one idea that answered 'no social warmth'
We ideated three directions before choosing one to build into a real-world prototype.
| Concept | Reasoning |
|---|---|
| Computer Corner | Addressed waiting time, but didn’t answer the “no social warmth” insight |
| Postcard Station | Created a keepsake, but required writing and didn’t invite group interaction |
| Photobooth (selected) | Low-cost, invited multiple family members to participate together, produced a shareable memory on the spot |
Final Prototype
We built a photobooth kit with handmade props designed to be quick enough to set up and test around town.
testing & results
Groups participated enthusiastically; individuals not so much…
We tested the prototype with 8 groups (15 total participants) in the field. Our participants were a mix of families, friends, and individuals, and we approached them and invited them to take a keepsake photo with our props.
Finding 01
Families and family responded enthusiastically and readily opted in
Finding 02
Individuals were noticeably more reluctant to participate alone
Finding 03
“Families are always looking for more photo opportunities.”
project outcomes
Presenting the findings to city hall stakeholders
We presented this project directly to City Hall directors and the rest of our cohort, including insights and next steps directors could use to move forward.
What we learned
- Families in Davis are actively looking for activities that create shared memories, not just faster paperwork
- Community is a core value residents associate with Davis, and they want City Hall to reflect that, not just administer it
Next steps we identified
- Refine the prototype based on broader testing
- Design a wider set of City Hall–themed props to keep the experience fresh for repeat visitors
reflection
Learning to read a room in real time
- Learned to cold approach strangers with no online safety net
- Became comfortable with reading hesitation and rejection in the moment
What I'd do differently
- Recruit a larger, demographically varied sample 7 interviews skewed towards long-term residents
- Test photobooth without a researcher present, to see if people see value in the set-up without being prompted