All Seasons
This community-driven proposal aimed to improve quality of life by addressing safety, noise, and amenity access. Guided by research and resident input, the design translated insights into tangible improvements across housing, retail, and public spaces—promoting safety, accessibility, and long-term community growth.
I selected this project as a case study due to its strong foundation in user-centered research methodologies and participatory design processes. It illustrates how user experience design (UXD) transcends the boundaries of digital product development and plays a vital role in shaping the environments around us. As someone professionally trained in another design discipline, this project reflects a parallel structure to UX workflows—demonstrating how research, empathy, and iterative thinking can create meaningful, real-world impact.
Role
UX Designer, Project Manager
Industry
Urban Planning & Landscape Architecture
Duration
3 months
Context
The 11.4-acre undeveloped lot in Oak Park, Sacramento—situated next to two major freeway arteries—remains underutilized, holding significant untapped potential. Our client, St. HOPE aims to transform this space into a vibrant urban community that better serves the neighborhood. This design proposal is intended to act as both a framework and source of inspiration for future development efforts.
St. Hope received $25 million in state grants and low-interest loans to rebuild the school to double its size and upgrade some existing facilities. Using the elementary school as the centerpiece, the organization also plans to utilize the large tracts of land it owns around the area.
Mossawir envisions a large mixed-use project akin to a smaller version of the Sacramento Railyards project that would include apartments, restaurants, a pediatrician, other retail entities and, perhaps most importantly, a grocery store in a neighborhood with few healthy food options.
“We wanna make sure it’s something the neighborhood can be proud of,” Mossawir said.
—— Sacramento Bee article by David Caraccio
Preliminary Research
I led initial site analysis research via media outlets, websites, and government agency databases, where I gained a deeper understanding into the environmental and sociocultural context of the raw site. My goal was to ensure our research data captured both qualitative and quantitative insights into the user needs of the Oak Park neighborhood. This matrix illustrates the current data and findings of severe environmental risks posed to the residents, shown in “Data-Qualitative” and “Data-Quantitative” — and potential mitigation strategies I proposed for the next few phases of planning and design.
Product Vision: Stakeholder Interviews
My research data informed our approach to the next phase: directly asking community members of St Hope Oak Park what they need, via virtual interview meetings. The primary goal here was to ensure we meet the most voiced client expectations. Some questions we asked during the interview are:
After the interviews, I analyzed the insights gathered from both the client organization and community members, identifying the most commonly addressed needs, illustrated below. This process allowed us to redefine design objectives and ensured alignment between the distinct priorities of both parties, creating a cohesive foundation for the next steps in the project.
Understanding Pain Points
After a careful and iterative process of analyzing research data and interview insights, we coded and prioritized these key issues to address in our design solutions:
Redefining the Problem
How might we transform an underutilized urban site into a walkable, healthy, and inclusive neighborhood that reflects community identity and addresses environmental sustainability?
Ideation: Information Architecture
From there, we developed 5 core design principles from the pain points to serve as guiding frameworks throughout the project. These principles provided a consistent and clear foundation for addressing ambiguities in the future phases of design.
Designing: User Flow
I led my team in identifying and agreeing upon the location for the primary revitalization zone. I created a series of thumbnail sketches to visualize potential user pathways through the development zone. Using arrows to represent key travel routes and major destination points, these sketches explored intuitive navigation and movement patterns.
Iteration v1:
Pollution Mitigation Barrier ‘Buffer Zone’
In addition to addressing major roadway proximity, our design solution also needed to respond to key concerns raised during stakeholder interviews—specifically safety and public health. Drawing from the quantitative data in our preliminary research, I proposed a two-layered landscape buffer zone strategy to mitigate air and noise pollution from the adjacent freeway, helping create a safer, healthier environment for the community.
Prototyping / Flushing out Design
Referencing David Caraccio’s article and the client’s vision for a mixed-use development, our design solution focused on four key areas of development:
Live / Residential Zone – To support housing needs and foster a sense of community.
Shop / Retail Zone – To address the lack of local commerce and provide access to essential services.
Gather / Recreational Playscape Zone – To encourage community interaction, play, and relaxation.
All-Season Blooming Plant Palette – To enhance public health (physically and mentally), visual appeal, and ecological resilience year-round.
In Retrospect
On impact and key outcomes, this project:
Delivered a formal proposal pitch to 20+ stakeholders from St. HOPE and Oak Park Neighborhood Association and received 90% approval on the retail zone design, with strong alignment on usability and user-centric features.
Developed a conceptual framework that informed the St. HOPE’s long-term urban planning strategies.
Spearheaded urban design innovations that increased physical activity through accessible public spaces and outdoor community engagement.
On lesson learned, regarding:
Leading and facilitating a team of 6 designers: working through conflicts and ambiguities with open communications and goal-setting.
From 0 to 100: driving progress from a raw empty site to a cohesive proposal through weekly check-ins and iterative design refinements with the client and mentor.