Borough: Civic Platform Design
Borough is a civic startup that connects residents and local governments through community discussions and structured 311 reporting. I led product design from concept to MVP, shaping mobile UX, AI-assisted reporting, brand identity, and early go-to-market across five pilot towns.
Product Strategy
Mobile UX
Branding
Go-to-market
AI Integration
Due to contractual agreements, certain visual artifacts and internal systems cannot be displayed publicly. Select diagrams and flows have been recreated to illustrate decision-making and architecture.
PROBLEM FRAMING
Reporting civic issues feels fragmented and uncertain for residents and municipal departments
When you see a fallen tree outside your home or a pothole on your way to work, what do you do? Who're you gonna call? *GHOSTBUSTERS* no.
Not 911. These are 311 issues. Non-emergency civic problems that require municipal action.
Across towns, reporting methods varied. Phone calls, emails, static website forms. Residents often lacked awareness of these channels, and there was no clear way to track progress. They did not know who owned the issue, whether it was received, or how to follow up.
Municipal teams, meanwhile, received unstructured inputs and manually routed them across departments.
RESEARCH & VALIDATION
Interviews and workflow audits revealed uncertainty on both sides
We conducted resident interviews and reviewed municipal intake processes. Two consistent patterns emerged:
Residents lacked confirmation and visibility.
Departments spent time interpreting and rerouting vague submissions.
The opportunity was not to build another reporting form, but to align resident visibility with operational workflow.
Visual Cue: Before-State Workflow
Horizontal simple flow:
Resident Submits (unstructured)
↓
General Inbox
↓
Manual Interpretation
↓
Department Assignment
Add 2 small annotations:
“No confirmation loop”
“Re-routing delays”
Keep it minimal. No icons necessary.
or no visual here
PRODUCT STRATEGY
Community-first surface with workflow-driven backbone
Borough launched with a community feed as the home screen. Reporting is episodic; community is continuous.
During structured walkthroughs, when reporting lived at equal hierarchy, discoverability dropped. When overly emphasized, the product felt like a 311 utility app.
Reporting became the center tab in bottom navigation — visible, but balanced.
Visual Cue: Mobile Navigation Hierarchy
High-fidelity mobile mock.
Show:
Community feed
Bottom nav
Center “Report” tab
Annotate only 3 things:
Community as default
Center-tab placement
Balanced visual weight
No more than 3 callouts.
🔹 Visual: Navigation Hierarchy Mock
High-fidelity mobile screen:
Show:
Community feed active
Bottom nav with center “Report” tab
Annotate:
Default community surface
Center tab placement
Equal visual weight
Maximum 3 callouts.
INTERACTION DESIGN
Structured reporting reduced ambiguity before intake
Submission followed four steps:
Describe → Location → Media → Review.
AI assisted categorization, but users reviewed the structured output before submission.
Clearer inputs reduced misrouting and downstream triage.
Visual Cue: 4-Step Reporting Flow + Screen
Top:
Horizontal 4-step progress bar.
Below:
1 cropped reporting screen (Describe step).
Annotate:
AI-generated category tag
Review confirmation state
Keep it compact. Don’t show all 4 screens full-size.
🔹 Visual: 4-Step Reporting Flow + Cropped UI
Top:
Minimal 4-step horizontal flow
Below:
One cropped “Describe” screen
Annotate:
AI category suggestion
Review confirmation screen (small inset)
Keep compact.
Add Prototypes section here.
STATUS SYSTEM
Visibility mapped directly to operational states
Immediately after submission, users see “Submitted.”
Status progressed:
Submitted → Routed → In Progress → Resolved.
Each state reflected a real operational change in the dashboard.
Language was validated in walkthrough sessions by asking users what they believed each status meant.
Visual Cue: Status Timeline Component
Create a vertical or horizontal stepper component:
Submitted (active state)
Routed
In Progress
Resolved
Under active state:
“Assigned to Public Works”
Make it look like a reusable component, not a diagram.
🔹 Visual: Status Timeline Component
Clean component style.
Show active “Routed” state.
Under it:
“Assigned to Public Works”
No heavy annotation. Let it feel system-level.
WORKFLOW ARCHITECTURE
Automated routing accelerated intake without removing human control
Reports were auto-tagged and routed to departments based on AI-generated categories. Departments could reassign if misclassified.
The dashboard centered on ownership clarity, status control, and workload visibility.
Visual Cue: Cropped Dashboard with Callouts
Do NOT show entire dashboard.
Crop tightly to show:
Category tag
Department column
Status dropdown
Ticket count metric
Add 3 clean callouts:
Auto-generated tag
Reassign control
Department load view
Minimal annotations only.
AI INTEGRATION
Assistive AI embedded into the reporting workflow
In MVP, AI focused on structured report generation and tag-based routing. Users reviewed AI output before submission. Departments retained override control.
A town Q&A assistant was piloted in beta.
The goal was augmentation, not automation.
Visual Cue: AI Decision Flow
Simple vertical flow:
User Description
↓
AI Structuring + Tagging
↓
User Review
↓
Auto Routing
↓
Manual Override Available
Use accent color only on AI blocks.
Keep it extremely clean.
ROADMAP & SCALING
A focused MVP with structured expansion
Six-month MVP included:
Community feed
Structured reporting
Status tracking
Operational dashboard
V2 roadmap:
Polls
Petitions
Group threads (post-linked)
Multi-town deployment was built into the architecture from the start.
Visual Cue: Horizontal Roadmap Strip
Left:
MVP (6 months)
List 4 items
Right:
V2
List 3 items
No arrows. No gradients.
Just typographic clarity.
BRAND & IDENTITY
Designing a politically neutral civic system
The logo uses overlapping geometric forms forming a rabbit silhouette, representing individual borough units forming a cohesive whole.
Purple was chosen to avoid red/blue partisan signaling while maintaining civic neutrality.
Visual Cue: Logo Breakdown
Left:
Logo
Right:
Overlapping shapes lightly separated
Below:
Purple swatch with small note:
“Red + Blue overlap. Politically neutral.”
Keep it clean. No heavy grid overlays.
OUTCOME
Five pilot towns launched within six months
The MVP validated:
Multi-town deployment
Automated routing in production
Active reporting and community usage
The product proved operational viability in real municipal environments.
Visual Cue:
Simple stat blocks:
5 Pilot Towns
6-Month MVP
AI-Assisted Routing Live
Large typography. Minimal design.
REFLECTION
Civic trust is built through visible ownership, not feature depth
Key takeaways:
Trust emerges from workflow transparency.
Automation must assist, not threaten.
Community and utility must coexist structurally.
Platform thinking should begin at MVP.
No visual needed here.
