Relationship Mapping in Woodruff Park

Design Bloc

Team
Emma Nohara, Om Jha, Nia Simone-Eccleston
Role
Design Researcher
Duration
12 Weeks
Focus
Design Research, Ethnography

Overview

A joint project between Design Bloc and Woodruff Park management which seeks to needfind within Woodruff Park. Our aim is to use human-centered design methods to uncover an unbiased view of the park’s current states and relationships.
Introduction
Discovery
Exploration
Definition
Outcome

Project Opportunity

Work jointly with park staff to uncover the current state of the park and understand the relationships which comprise the park ecosystem. This work is to inform next steps park staff might take.
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Project Impact

My team and I uncovered the current uses of the park and developed an ecosystem map. We focused on defining the service provider and service receiver personas, as the relationship between provider and receiver is the center of most park activities.

Project Context

Why Woodruff Park?

Woodruff is a park located in the Atlanta downtown area. Our lead has partnered with the park management with a goal of understanding the underlying relationships and needs of the space. Key facts are listed below:

  • Founded by Robert W. Woodruff (former Coca Cola president)

  • Estimated 5 million guests each year, brings in additional crowd ( 10,000 annually) for special events

  • Located at 91 Peachtree St NW , Atlanta GA 30303 with a size of 6 acres

  • Maintained by A-DID (Atlanta Downtown Improvement District)

  • Intended to be a flexible space for large crowds, targeting students, business workers, and for tourists of events

Project Context

Collaborating with a community of individuals...

Our goal is to collaborate with a community of individuals who, we should consider living experts to gain a sense of cognitive empathy for their experience and thereby identify opportunities to introduce improvement.

We were encouraged and equipped to stay objective and defer assumptions, and reminded that as designers we are responsible for the effects of the community we engage with.

Before we began to conduct ethnography, we were lectured on being aware of our frame of reference and reminded that we must approach this project in the lens of Co-Design.

Designing FOR, as a transaction
Designing WITH, as an engagement

Ethnography

Exploring the activities, environment, interactions, objects, and users

A partner and I went to the park on a Saturday evening to conduct casual interviews and observe the park to help build contextual awareness of the ecosystem. We observed for an hour and a half and talked to 3 parties of visitors.

Activities

  • Playground
  • Eating Lunch
  • Leisure
  • Playing music
  • Dancing
  • Yoga
  • Sleeping

Interactions

  • Children Playing on the Playground
  • Visitors Eating with Friends on Tables
  • Visitors Talking in Gathering Spaces
  • Visitors Laying on blankets in Green Spaces
  • Visitors Dancing Together in the Gazebo
  • Visitors Preparing Cardboard Boxes to Sleep on

Environment

  • Kiosks
  • Pop Up Tents + Umbrellas
  • Gazebos (Dance Floor)
  • Fountain
  • Paved Paths
  • Green Spaces
  • Shaded Walkways
  • Gathering Spaces
  • Well-Kept Cafe
  • Playground

Objects

  • Food
  • Phones
  • Toys
  • Blankets
  • Music Makers
  • Weed
  • Flattened Cardboard
    Boxes

Users

  • Children
  • Families
  • Young Adults
  • Older Population
  • (Male Dominated)

Ethnography

Information exchange with park staff

Our studio class visited Woodruff Park and was guided through the park by its staff. We were then given the opportunity to ask questions about the park as well to validate our understanding of the park.

Ethnography

Validating the activities, environment, interactions, objects, and users

Given our new-found context and information, we returned to the park on a Friday afternoon to conduct more interviews and observe. We observed for an hour and a half and talked to 4 parties of visitors.

Activities

  • Playground
  • Eating Lunch
  • Leisure
  • Playing music
  • Sleeping
  • Photography

Interactions

  • Children Playing on the Playground
  • Visitors Eating with Friends on Tables
  • Visitors Talking in Gathering Spaces
  • Visitors Laying on blankets in Green Spaces
  • Visitors Preparing Cardboard Boxes to Sleep on

Objects

  • Food
  • Phones
  • Toys
  • Blankets
  • Music Makers
  • Bikes
  • Flattened Cardboard
    Boxes

Users

  • Young Adults
  • Older Population
  • (Male Dominated)

Environment

  • Kiosks
  • Pop Up Tents + Umbrellas
  • Gazebos (Dance Floor)
  • Fountain
  • Paved Paths
  • Green Spaces
  • Shaded Walkways
  • Gathering Spaces
  • Well-Kept Cafe
  • Playground

Reflection

Key observations

High level reflections of our past observations.

About the Park, in General
  • The well-kept nature of the facilities in contrast to the amount of people sleeping on cardboard boxes
  • Myriad of activities - napping, photography, relaxing, dancing, eating, playing games
About the People
  • Predominantly local communities
  • Everyone seems to be in no rush to do anything else, contrast to the Hussle of Atlanta

Affinity Mapping

Identifying common themes and relationships

As a team, we began to write down our notes and findings from our collective observations. We then began to affinity map to uncover initial common themes within the park.

Different Groups of Thought

  • Tourist’s Initial Experiences
  • Resources
  • Park Fixtures
  • Sleeping at the Park
  • Safety + Security of the Unhoused

Reflection

Our current understanding

What surprised me ?
  • Belief that Woodruff Park is the safest location for the unhoused in downtown Atlanta- best place to receive resources as certain shelters were shut down post-COVID-19.
  • Many visitors have strong opinions of the park and have very formed opinions about the unhoused. However, they consider thinking about a cyclical model out of their scope.
What are some trends that we now see?
There are several points of interest in the park in regards to use:
  • People who see it as profit
  • People who use it for leisure
  • People who see it to fulfill needs

Affinity Mapping

Finalizing common themes in our observations

Based on our initial themes, we conducted additional interviews, both from the park staff partnered with our studio and organically with visitors of the park. We were able to then categorize visitors into general buckets and affinity map in regards to common themes.

Interviews

  • • Rachel (Tourist)
  • • Edwin (Park Resident)
  • • Ashley (GSU Student)
  • • Cici (Local resident)
  • • Ansley (Park Staff)
  • • Flat - Iron Owners (Business Investors)

Themes

  • Resting at the Park
  • Resources
  • Vibrancy*
    *Elements which contribute to the overall enjoyment and positive ambiance
  • Park's Permanent +
    Semi Permanent Fixtures

Psychographic Personas

Who are actors in the park ecosystem?

Our team then used our existing affinity map to guide creating psychographic personas based on our prior interviews and research. Psychographic personas are concerned with motivation, goals, and pains.

Personas

  • Tourists
  • Business Investors
  • Students
  • Local Residents
  • Park Residents

Relationships

Mapping the ecosystem

We then used ecosystem mapping to map the relationships between our personas. Our goal was to understand the current state of the system or community. In the process, we found that from our previous affinity mapping, we were missing a persona category.

The service provider persona refers to visitors who interact with Woodruff Park with the intention of providing a service to other visitors.

In addition, we found that GSU students did not have any traditional relationships with the other defined personas.

Park Staff / Business Affiliated
Transactional
Park Staff / Service Provider
Regulatory + Supportive
Service Provider / Business Affiliated
Competitive
Service Provider / Unhoused People
Supportive + Transactional

Design Research Scope

What do we hope to understand?

Given that the team and I had worked to gain a more thorough contextual understanding of the park, we defined a research scope. This was to help our team make sense of our existing data and identify what else we needed to uncover. We could not have identified a scope earlier in our process as we did not have an understanding of the park and its community.

The scope of this project is to understand the experiences of service-minded individuals in Woodruff Park. This includes both individuals who are in charge of providing a service as well as individuals who receive a service

Design Research Scope

Defining service

Since our scope revolves around service-oriented relationships, our team wanted to clearly define "service" to avoid misinterpretaion.

Service:  a helpful activity or experience

Design Research Scope

Defining personas of focus

Our team decided to only focus on the Service Provider and the Service Receiver for our scope.

However, our prior work was important for it allowed us to define and understand that if service providers exist, service receivers must also exist as an entity. In addition, it allowed us to understand the larger ecosystem at hand. We found that individuals who were service receivers and providers could also fall into our other persona categories.

Service Providers:
Individuals who conduct helpful activity or experiences at Woodruff Park
Service Receivers:
Individuals who benefit from a helpful activity or experience at Woodruff Park

Psychographic Personas

Creating Woodruff Park community profiles

To further define service providers and receivers, we created community profiles about real individuals we interviewed in the Woodruff Park ecosystem who fall into either persona.

Providers
Leo Prinzi
Food4Lives
“We work in Woodruff Park because people need help there”
How?
Finds value in helping the local community and making a difference with his work, and finds it a valuable break from his engineering job at an Atlanta startup
Why?
Employee of Non-Profit Food4Lives that distributes food, clothes, and other resources in Woodruff Park
When?
Has been working with F4L for ~3 years and visits Woodruff Park personally on a regular basis to distribute
Sabrina
Make A
Smile Foundation
“I want to help people through my ministry at the park”
How?
Walks around the park and tries to invite people to her service, and provides food to attendees afterwards
Why?
Part of church organization that does ministry at Woodruff Park twice a week
When?
Goes to park every Sunday and Monday afternoon
Malik Khalid
Yoga Instructor
“Yoga is an elitist practice…I want to give everyone a chance to practice yoga”
How?
Got connected with the park through the manager, hosts hour-long vinyasa yoga with free popsicles after each session
Why?
Yoga teacher in ATL area, has been teaching yoga since 2018 and in Woodruff Park since the summer
When?
Visits every week during peak seasons, wants to provide opportunity for everyone to practice yoga especially in black and brown communities
Receiver
Cici Howard
Yoga Student
"Atlanta doesn’t share its resources very well”
How?
Podcaster and advocates for black lives + black stories and wants to know “how different people think” at the park
Why?
Originally a student of another free yoga class, but switched to Woodruff Park’s class because of convenience
When?
Attends yoga class every weekend, but is disappointed that the classes are seasonal
Sarah
Tourist
“We were walking around downtown and saw the waterfall”
How?
Walking around the city, impressed by the green and surprisingly serene spaces. Actively looking for things to do and places to be
Why?
Colorado college student and was showing newly-graduated hometown friends around Atlanta
When?
Was trying to find parks in the area when Centennial Park was closed

Psychographic Personas

Motivations, goals, and pains of a provider and receiver

While creating the community profiles, we simultaneously finalized the psychographic personas of a provider and receiver (motivations, goals, pains).

Service Provider

Motivations
  • To serve people around them
  • To share knowledge / resources with others
Goals
  • For visitors of the park to reap a benefit
  • To start new relationships/ connections with others
  • To fulfill others needs within a specific agenda
Pains
  • Unwilling participants / lack of participants
  • Set up/ Clean up
  • Lack of organizational support
  • Allocation of physical space

Service Receiver

Motivations
  • To better their current situation
  • To receive a benefit with little effort
Goals
  • To take advantage of a resource being offered
  • To be in a local space with multiple opportunities for gain

  • ‍
Pains
  • Lack of say in services offered
  • Perceived safety + security
  • General uncleanliness + litter

  • ‍

Relationship Mapping

Story map

We created a story map mapping the basic interactions between a service provider and receiver in Woodruff Park. We identified key stages and the physical space each stage is commonly associated with.

Key Insights

Service providers and service receivers are intrinsically linked

Though our research we found that the relationship between providers and receivers is symbiotic. They need one another in other to be successful in their goals.

Mutually Beneficial

Service Receivers find useful resources and opportunities to socially connect.

Service Providers find value in helping others and contributing locally.

Key Relationships

Outside relationships of impact

Woodruff Park staff regulates Service Providers, offering permits and assistance in providing resources to people in the park.

Service Providers often compete with local businesses by providing free resources instead of paid services by local businesses.

Acknowledgments

Reflection

Over the course of this semester, I as a designer had to ask questions and be in situations that I didn't immediately feel comfortable with. I believe I grew personally as a designer during the course of this project. I enjoyed the collaborative nature of this studio class and how we were able to question or validate our findings based on the experiences of other teams.

I am incredible grateful for the many students I worked with during the course of the project. It was a wonderful experience challenging each others assumptions and stitching together a working model of the park and its relationships. I feel comfortable with field research and have added many new tools and methods to my design research toolkit.

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