SPUR — the San Francisco Bay Area Planning and Urban Research Association — is a nonprofit public policy organization. SPUR brings people together from across the political spectrum to develop solutions to the big problems cities face. Based in San Francisco, San José, and Oakland, SPUR is recognized as a leading civic planning organization and respected for independent and holistic approach to urban issues.
"In my 15+ years working on websites and digital publications, Neelu is my favorite developer. They approach UX design from a humanist point of view and bring their background as an artist and filmmaker to creating graceful designs and elegant solutions. Neelu has a highly developed capacity for empathy and emotional intelligence — not always common in the world of web development. They listen carefully to understand our goals and situate them within the larger context of our organizational values and brand voice. They also have a great sense of humor, take joy in work well done, and are truly a pleasure to work with."
Ren Steen | Communications Director at SPUR
Voter Guide
Created a comprehensive UX design for SPUR's multi-city Voter Guide with a smooth filtering system.
SPUR wanted an integrated Voter Guide aligned with their new expansion as a California state-wide association in contrast with the previous city-specific focus (San Francisco, San José and Oakland). This landing page is the result of a complex redesign project that allows the user to easily find and learn about SPUR's recommendations on each of the propositions for each of their focus cities, the broader Bay Area and California.
I played the role of UX/UI designer and front end developer on this project. I worked with Ren, our Communications Director and Sydney Ng, our Digital Communications Specialist and Alicia John-Baptiste, President and CEO on this project. I conveyed SPUR's request for elegance, simplicity and ease through the use of a sleek filtering system. It was important for me to balance the engaging user experience with accessibility requirements, page loading speeds and bandwidth usage. As a result, I created a motif with bold square frames for each prop, multiple ways to search for user's preferred Voter Guide segments, and a printable version. All of which convey SPUR’s bold, down-to-earth ethos in an accessible and sustainable way.
Events Filtering System
Designed a seamless filtering experience for a complex events management system for SPUR's various types of calendar events.
SPUR has a myriad variety of events catering to their varied audiences. They wanted an elaborate filtering system to enable users to easily mine the events that are of interest to them. This succinct and clean filtering segment provided on the events calendar page allows users to explore events of their choice with ease and speed.
I played the role of UX/UI designer and front end developer on this project. I worked with Ren, our Communications Director, Jamie Coleman, Senior Events & Engagement Manager and Sydney Ng, our Digital Communications Specialist on this project. I conveyed SPUR's request to synthesize and classify events into intuitive chunks.