UX Case Study
Dearborn Decide — a youth-voice platform for the City of Dearborn.
Turning a fundraising problem into a youth-voice platform.
Overview
My Role: UX Research & Product Design
Team: 4 designers
Client: City of Dearborn
Course: SI 538, University of Michigan
Timeline: 14 weeks · Sept–Dec 2025
Dearborn Decide reframes a civic fundraising challenge into a platform for young residents to surface ideas, react to community priorities, and see how city decisions move forward.
The Problem
“Young residents don’t donate, engage, or enter the donor pipeline. How might we inspire them to give?”
The City’s brief focused on donations, but early evidence suggested the deeper issue was not generosity — it was trust, relevance, and whether young residents felt invited into civic decision-making.
Research
We combined 95+ survey responses, expert interviews, and in-person research to understand how young Dearborn residents think about giving, participation, and city trust.
70%
had donated in the past year — just not to the City
46.4%
felt disconnected from the city
The Reframe
From: “How do we get young people to donate?”
To: “How do we build trust and belonging first?”
Exploring Solutions
We diverged into five early concepts, then converged on the idea that best connected civic participation, transparency, and low-friction action.
The Solution — Dearborn Decide
Dearborn Decide gives each young resident a simple way to propose ideas, react to priorities, and see how participation shapes the City’s annual decision cycle.
1 Free Idea
Every resident starts with a no-cost civic proposal.
1 Free Reaction
Residents can support, question, or refine community ideas.
Buy More
Optional paid actions turn participation into civic giving.
Transparency builds trust
Young residents need to see where ideas go, who evaluates them, and what happens next.
Visible ownership creates belonging
Participation feels meaningful when residents can recognize their voice in public outcomes.
View Figma prototype
The Annual Cycle
Jan–Sept · Open
Oct–Dec · Evaluate
January · Announce
Testing & Iteration
Prototype testing helped us simplify the action model, clarify how ideas move through review, and make ownership feel visible without adding friction.
Impact
Youth Voice
Creates a civic channel that starts with listening.
Transparency
Shows how ideas are reviewed, prioritized, and answered.
Stronger Community Relations
Turns giving into an ongoing relationship with the City.
Greater Resources
Connects participation to a clearer donor pipeline.
Reflection
This project taught me to look past the first brief and listen for the problem underneath. The strongest product direction emerged when we shifted from asking for donations to designing conditions for trust, ownership, and belonging.