UX Research Portfolio
Hilltop, Tacoma
My UX Research has all taken place in the traditionally Black neighborhood of Hilltop in Tacoma, WA. Here is a historical short documentary about Hilltop in their own words.
War on the Hill. a classic document on the so-called war on drugs in the Hilltop community of Tacoma, WA. The film was shot on location in the late eighties. president George Bush senior was president at this time. film by dwayne waller.
Background Description:
Initiated in 2016 the Links to Opportunity Project works with the community in designing streetscape improvements along Sound Transit’s Hilltop Tacoma Link Extension route. The resulting streetscape design will enable safe access for all users including pedestrians, cyclists, motorists, and transit riders of all ages and abilities.
Spaceworks Tacoma, working with the City of Tacoma, contracted community engagement specialists to engage Hilltop neighbors through pop-up outreach events. The collected data will guide the streetscape design elements of the Martin Luther King Jr. Way sidewalk area between 6th Avenue to 19th Street. Nine creative Tacomans developed innovative ways to collect feedback about the proposed street redesign known as Links To Opportunity. Working side by side with consultants Christopher Paul Jordan and Tera Williams, the resulting temporary projects span from interactive chalking, to care packages for people who are homeless, to a giant piñata. “We want to ensure that community vision is communicated and reflected in the design to the best of our ability,” said Andy Micklow, AICP, Project Senior Planner.
This isn’t the project’s first outreach effort with the community. From July to October 2017, Downtown on the Go, Sound Outreach – Hilltop Action Coalition, and Tacoma Housing Authority engaged in grassroots outreach with the Hilltop community.
Methods:
Creative Equity-Centered Community Engagement is an approach to community engagement that prioritizes the voices of historically marginalized and underrepresented groups. It is a process that actively seeks out the perspectives and input of community members, particularly those who have traditionally been excluded from decision-making processes. This approach involves using creative and innovative methods to engage community members in a meaningful way, such as through art, storytelling, or participatory design. By centering the voices and experiences of marginalized communities, equity-centered community engagement can lead to more inclusive and equitable outcomes that better reflect the needs and values of the community. This approach recognizes that community engagement is not a one-size-fits-all process, and that it is important to adapt engagement strategies to fit the specific needs and context of each community.
Creative Equity-Centered Community Engagement can be a powerful research method that enables researchers to gather rich and nuanced data on the experiences and perspectives of historically marginalized and underrepresented communities. By centering the voices and experiences of community members, this approach can help researchers to identify important issues and concerns that might otherwise be overlooked or ignored. Additionally, by using creative and innovative methods to engage community members in the research process, equity-centered community engagement can help to build trust and foster meaningful relationships between researchers and community members. This approach recognizes that community members are experts in their own experiences and can contribute valuable insights to the research process. By embracing an equity-centered approach to community engagement, researchers can ensure that their research is more inclusive, equitable, and representative of the needs and values of the community.
The community engagement efforts for the proposed street redesign, Links to Opportunity, involved various interactive and participatory methods that allowed community members to provide feedback in creative and engaging ways. These methods were designed to encourage active participation and foster meaningful connections between community members, consultants, and decision-makers. By using interactive community engagement methods, the project team was able to collect rich and diverse feedback that reflected the perspectives and experiences of the community. These creative community engagement methods not only provide valuable feedback on the proposed street redesign, but also help to build stronger connections between community members and increase community involvement in the decision-making process.
Insights:
By involving Hilltop community members in the decision-making process, the engagement effort has led to more informed decision-making by decision-makers who better understand the needs and values of the Hilltop community. The engagement effort has also fostered collaborative relationships between community members, decision-makers, and other stakeholders, building trust and leading to more effective and sustainable solutions. By ensuring that the perspectives and experiences of historically marginalized and underrepresented groups in the Hilltop community are taken into account, the engagement effort has created more inclusive and equitable outcomes. By building social capital and creating opportunities for Hilltop community members to connect and work together on shared goals, the engagement effort has created a stronger and more resilient Hilltop community. Overall, the Hilltop community engagement effort has been a critical component of effective decision-making and has positively impacted the Hilltop community and the decision-makers involved.
Impacts:
The Hilltop community engagement effort resulted in several important findings and themes. These themes included shifting narratives, signifiers of a thriving neighborhood, economic empowerment, practical solutions, and living histories. Additionally, the engagement effort identified several design recommendations, including using bright, bold, and vibrant Pan-African colors such as black, yellow, red, and green, and incorporating patterns and motifs that were to be determined by community engagement specialists with further feedback from the community. They suggested incorporating quotes from historic figures such as Thurgood Marshall and Jesse Owens. Finally, the engagement effort recognized the historic significance of key figures to the Hilltop community, including Willie Stewart, Alberta Canada, Martin Luther King Jr., and Rosa Parks. These findings and recommendations were crucial for decision-makers and community members as they worked to address the needs and values of the Hilltop community.
“They knew I was an authentic resident and someone who really lived on the Hilltop and a lot of us shared stories and memories together. People were very concerned about the new class of people that are moving into the community and they feel like there is a lack of respect for the people that have occupied the area and those that are native to the community. ”
Lessons Learned:
Our initial Hilltop community engagement effort provided several important lessons learned for future community engagement efforts. First and foremost, it highlighted the importance of centering the voices and experiences of the community in decision-making processes. By involving Hilltop community members in the decision-making process, decision-makers were able to better understand the needs and values of the community, leading to more informed and equitable decision-making. The engagement effort also emphasized the importance of building trust and fostering collaborative relationships between community members, decision-makers, and other stakeholders. This involved providing opportunities for community members to participate in the decision-making process and creating a safe and inclusive environment where all voices were heard and valued. Additionally, the engagement effort demonstrated the importance of adapting engagement strategies to fit each community's specific needs and context. By using creative and innovative methods that were tailored to the Hilltop community, the engagement effort was able to build stronger connections and foster more meaningful participation. Finally, the engagement effort underscored the importance of reflecting on the engagement process and seeking feedback from community members to continuously improve community engagement efforts. By reflecting on the lessons learned from the Hilltop community engagement effort, decision-makers and community members continued to improve engagement strategies and create more meaningful and effective solutions that better reflect the needs and values of the community.
#DesignTheHill
Project Manager - CHRIS JORDAN
Tacoma 2018-2021
#DesignTheHill was a throughline between projects building upon values and work done in the community to vision an ideal outcome.
Tacoma Housing Authority
The first project under the #DesignTheHill banner was with Tacoma Housing Authority.
Methods:
Case Studies
Spaceworks Links to Opportunity
Project Manager - Michael Liang
Summer 2018
We started with an Anti-Racism Workshop with the design team to set a foundation with the team then moved into our research protocol.
Our questions were:
How do we take the cultural knowledge, experience, history, and hope for the future, and reflect that in the design?
How can we empower the Hilltop Community to design itself?
We held 4 homework groups with our core invested group figuring out community values and what our priorities should be moving forward. Elders came to share history of the black business district and they set a goal of 80% Black businesses in the space.
We held 3 design labs open to the general public where they worked with our design team to cultivate ideas, point out issues, create rapid prototypes, and provide space for venting past issues to heal relationships in the community.
We did community engagement projects focused on the subareas of youth, black-owned businesses, long-term well-connected Hilltop residents, the ESL community, and elders.
Insights:
Through this process, we learned that we could not work with absolutes, the community was more empathetic than we ever thought possible, and our timelines would always have to be adjustable. We developed a design guideline with the community outlining their priorities and goals for the future.
Design Guideline Summary:
Design Process Priorities:
Invite Diverse Co-Creators
Building humility and empathy.
Acknowledging and dismantling power constructs
Defining and assessing community needs
Co-Create with the community
Community Values:
Equity in Housing
Togetherness
Community Vitality
Environmental Justice
Mitigating Displacement
Community Gathering
Support for Local Economy
Art and Culture
Spaces to Relax and Rest
Healthy Environment
Access to Healthy Food
A desire for more greenery
Ownership in the community -> Safety
Impact:
By using community engagement and co-creation processes, the project fostered collaborative relationships between community members, decision-makers, and other stakeholders. It built trust and understanding between different groups, leading to more effective and sustainable solutions. The design guideline developed through this project serves as a roadmap for decision-makers, ensuring that future development projects within the Hilltop community are guided by the community's priorities and values. The project empowered the Hilltop community to design itself, ensuring that the community's voices are heard and taken into account in the decision-making process. As a result, the project has been able to create a stronger, more resilient, and more equitable Hilltop community. The first leg of the project provided an excellent foundation for the second stage of the project.
Lessons Learned:
Through the first #DesignTheHill project, we learned the importance of paying our homework group and meeting with them extensively before the design process begins. By paying our homework group, we would be able to recognize and value their time, expertise, and contributions to the project. This would also ensure that community members who were typically excluded from decision-making processes due to financial barriers were able to participate and have their voices heard. Additionally, meeting with the homework group extensively before the design process began would allow us to build relationships with them, understand their needs and priorities, and incorporate their feedback into the areas of the design process the community most focused on in the design labs. By doing so, we would be able to create a more collaborative and equitable design process, resulting in outcomes that better reflect the needs and values of the Hilltop community. This insight was crucial for the success of the next stage of #DesignTheHill and informed our approach to community engagement and co-creation in future projects.
Forterra
Going into the Forterra project, we used the same methods but altered our practices based on the insights from the THA process. Midway through the process, COVID hit and we were required to alter our plans. The Forterra project involved temporarily activating a long-neglected space and developing attainable and affordable condos in a quickly gentrifying neighborhood.
Rite Aid Before Temporary Activation
After:
Impacts:
Lessons Learned:
The #DesignTheHill project taught us important lessons about the design and development process. We learned that in a quickly changing landscape, simply adding more housing units may not be enough to create lasting and meaningful change. Instead, the placement and design of these units, in combination with an overall focus on community viability, has a broader impact than just the physical structures themselves. Through our engagement with the Hilltop community, we gained a deeper understanding of their needs and values and were able to incorporate them into the design process. By prioritizing equity, togetherness, community vitality, environmental justice, mitigating displacement, community gathering, and support for the local economy, we were able to create a vision for a stronger and more equitable community. The THA and Forterra projects, adding 231 and 300 units respectively, were only a small part of this vision, but their placement and design were critical to its success. By focusing on community viability and the broader impacts of development, we were able to create solutions that were responsive to the needs and values of the Hilltop community, leading to more equitable and sustainable outcomes.
