MyGov App:
Interaction Design
Engage, Inform, and Empower Our Communities!
In our current society, numerous barriers hinder ongoing engagement with local government, leaving many feeling disconnected. However, I see an opportunity to bridge this gap through the development of an unbiased mobile app designed for citizens of legal voting age. This app will provide a safe, educational platform, empowering users to stay informed, participate in discussions, and ultimately shape the decisions affecting their communities.
By leveraging technology, I aim to foster inclusive civic participation, ensuring that everyone can confidently participate and stay informed in the democratic process.
Users - Who would benefit?
Across all three personas, there’s a clear desire to be informed and involved in local government—but current systems are inaccessible, time-consuming, and overly complex.
Insight: May is motivated by civic responsibility and her students, but she’s busy and often forgets to follow through. Current government websites demand more time and focus than she can give.
Insight: Ianna feels overwhelmed and disconnected. She wants to understand and participate, but jargon, unclear pathways to involvement, and a lack of connection to officials block her.
Insight: Mark is highly motivated to stay informed but faces additional physical and logistical barriers as a wheelchair user. Inaccessible meetings and dense information make participation harder.
Together, their experiences highlight four key elements to support deeper, more equitable civic engagement.
Identifying Pain Points
Despite different starting points, every user shared one thing: frustration.
When trying to engage with local government, they faced:
Confusing language and heavy jargon
Overwhelming information that was difficult to find
Barriers to participation—in-person events weren’t accessible
Uncertainty around how or where to get involved
Limited time to dig through complex websites
Goal: Get citizens what they need so they can start to take action!
UX Ecosystem Map
The UX ecosystem map for this civic engagement app provides a comprehensive overview of the user journey, highlighting key touch-points and interactions throughout the experience.
Card Sort Exercise
To understand how users naturally group civic topics, I conducted a card sorting exercise. This revealed key patterns in how people mentally organize information related to local services, issues, and events. These insights directly shaped the app’s navigation structure.
Information Architecture
Local government info is often dense, overwhelming, and hard to navigate. MyGov solves this with an intentional architecture, using smart filtering and clear navigation to surface what matters most. A streamlined structure ensures users can access essential information quickly and confidently.
Main Task Flows
Searching for a new bill and saving it for future reference
Create an account and check out upcoming town hall meetings
After conducting our audit of the current app through heuristic analysis, crafting new user flows, and conducting user tests I established goals for redesign.
Design Objectives
1.) Simplify civic information with plain language and summaries, making complex topics feel approachable—not overwhelming.
2.) Foster meaningful engagement by helping users track legislation and voting deadlines relevant to them.
3.) Create a personalized experience that adapts to users’ interests, location, and civic involvement level.
4.) Support accessibility and inclusivity with features that support users with limited time, mobility, and reading difficulty.
5.) Build trust and connection through human-centered visuals and representation across imagery and iconography.
Moodboard
Benchmarking
To inform MyGov’s onboarding, navigation, and filtering systems, I analyzed successful apps with intuitive UX:
Headspace inspired welcoming splash screens, with friendly visuals and clear language that ease users into the experience.
Ipsy was referenced for onboarding using a progress bar and clear visual states of buttons.
Spotify informed my approach to sectioned layouts, tab navigation, and image-supported filters, making dense content easier to explore.
Headspace Mobile App
Ipsy Mobile App
Spotify Mobile App
Paper Wireframing
Goal: Create an intentional information hierarchy that reveals content progressively, avoiding cognitive overload.
Takeaways: MyGov ran into a unique issue when testing. Most users didn't even have the knowledge to know what they expected to see on the app. This posed a unique problem that required direct questioning after each round of testing to help the users understand what they wanted.
Creating an Account
Finding Legislation
Finding an Event
Low-fi Wireframing
Goal: Provide enough info so users with limited knowledge understand the content, but not too much information as to overwhelm or confuse.
Takeaways:
Additional exploration of button size and spacing needed.
More information is necessary on certain pages.
Mid-fidelity Wireframing
Goal: Use unique actions and elegant navigation to make MyGov enjoyable
to interact with for all users.
Takeaways:
Information in greyscale is feeling overwhelming.
Updates to navigation necessary as users were freely able to click through prototype for the first time.
Design System
The MyGov design system gives a more comprehensive view into how color, type, imagery, and iconography are directly used across the app to drive engagement and create consistency to promote trust.
Takeaways
MyGov reinforced how thoughtful information architecture can make or break a digital experience, especially when working with dense, high-stakes content. This project pushed my ability to prioritize clarity, structure content with intent, and collaborate with users through testing to ensure the design met real needs. It reminded me that design isn’t just about aesthetics, great design creates access points where there were once barriers.
