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                    CityLab

                    People sitting a circle, using laptops.
                    CityLab is a space to prototype and test new ideas and city services with the community.

                    In the coming years, Melbourne will face many challenges, such as a rising population, climate change and the changing nature of work. CityLab, located on the ground floor of the Melbourne Town Hall, is one of the ways the City of Melbourne works together with our community to future-proof our city.

                    We practice human centred design, which means we work with the people who’ll be using the final product to make sure that what we build is tailored to their needs.

                    The CityLab approach is not about jumping to solutions, it’s about working with the community to understand future challenges, explore opportunities, and build and test solutions that will work for our people and the city. We work this way so we can move quickly, use minimal resources, and maximise the community’s involvement.

                    Re-designing council services

                    CityLab uses a four-step process to redesign council services, first understanding the problem, then trialling and testing solutions to create the best possible services for our customers.

                    A great example of our work is the research we conducted into understanding how people who are blind, deaf or deaf–blind navigate through the city. As a result of this research, we've partnered with Vision Australia to trial beacon technology in Campbell Arcade, which transmits location-specific information to phones.

                    Open Data

                    ​Anyone can access and use the many data sets available on our open data platform.

                    By publishing this data, we’re aiming to increase transparency, improve public services and support new economic social initiatives. Launched by CityLab in 2014, the open data platform has been used for research, data visualisations and to create new online applications for the city’s customers.

                    Contact us

                    Contact name
                    CityLab
                    Address
                    Ground Floor, Melbourne Town Hall
                    90-130 Swanston Street
                    Melbourne VIC 3000
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