Citizen-Institution Interaction

TThe project aimed to design the Help and Support services and the Appointment Booking section for apublic website template, soon being available to all Italian municipalities.

The aim of the research is to understand how Italian citizens conceptualize the “Help and Support” sections, in order to better present it digitally.

Following a preliminary benchmarking phase on both the public and private sectors, the main research part has been conducted through interviews. The goal was to understand how citizens get in touch with their municipality, past problematic cases and possible expectations.

The emerged data highlighted:

• Citizens prefer traditional communication channels over online assistance.
• Big companies like Amazon and Apple are perceived differently due to their swift feedback and solutions.
• FAQs are appreciated, even though the term itself is not widely recognized.
• Most appointments are booked in person due to the lack of an online service.
• There is interest in an online booking tool, influenced by increased comfort with online systems post-pandemic.

As following steps, user personas, experience maps,conceptual maps and taxonomy have been used to develop more on the insights.

The conceptual map is structured around key themes related to citizen feedback and support. It includes the following main components:

• Actors: key stakeholders involved in citizen communication.
• Feedback: methods and channels through which citizens provide input
• Support: assistance provided to citizens, like help channels, FAQs, and resources.

Each section is further broken down into subcategories, illustrating different communication methods, issues, and solutions.

From the map, the taxonomy of the sections is then derived.

As final step before the high-fidelity prototype, the design of the experience has been sketched.

The final version is a dynamic contact hub, segmented into two main functionalities, Supporting and Reporting. Supporting communication channels includes: FAQs, chatbot, email, phone and appointments. The latter has been designed following the alreadyfamiliar covid-related booking systems. The Reporting section gathers opinions about online services and reports on the municipality land.