City of Tallinn
Simplifying access to complex city data to support faster planning decisions
The challenge
Tallinn’s Digital Twin brought together large volumes of geospatial, infrastructure and municipal data, but everyday work still relied on multiple disconnected systems. Civil servants often had to switch between maps, legal documents, utility records and planning software before making even routine decisions. As a result, finding reliable information was time-consuming, collaboration across departments was fragmented, and confidence in the available data was often limited.
The goal of the project was to understand how city employees actually work with urban data, identify the biggest usability barriers, and design a Digital Twin experience that supports faster decision-making, better collaboration and easier access to trustworthy information.
Methods
Stakeholder Interview, Industry Benchmarking, Competitive Audit, Semi-Structured Interviews, Thematic Analysis, Persona Development, User Scenario Development, Prototyping
Team
Oguz Ali Hanecioglu, Tatevik Meliksetyan, Hamza Mehmood, Olawale Azeem Gbadamosi
Duration
3 Months
Research
The project combined stakeholder research, industry benchmarking and qualitative user research to understand how civil servants access, analyse and share city information throughout their daily work.
→ Stakeholder interview
The project started with a stakeholder interview with Tallinn’s Digital Twin Technology Manager to understand the platform’s objectives, future direction and the challenges faced by the city. This established the project’s scope and identified civil servants as the primary user group.
→ Industry benchmarking & competitive audit
Three Digital Twin platforms—Dubai Digital Twin, Rotterdam 3D, and Cities: Skylines—were benchmarked to compare their interaction patterns, data visualisation, feature sets, and overall user experience. The analysis highlighted effective design approaches and revealed opportunities to improve the usability, accessibility, and functionality of Tallinn’s Digital Twin.
→ User interviews & thematic analysis
Five semi-structured interviews explored how Tallinn civil servants accessed, verified, and managed city data across different municipal workflows. The sessions also examined how fragmented systems, outdated information, manual processes, and limited cross-departmental coordination affected their daily work.
Thematic analysis revealed recurring needs for more accurate and accessible data, simpler navigation, stronger system integration, and more efficient ways to compare and update information. These findings informed the user scenarios, personas, and subsequent design decisions.
→ Persona development & user scenarios
Research findings were synthesised into personas and realistic user scenarios representing common municipal workflows. They helped prioritise key functionality and ensured that the proposed solution reflected the needs, goals, and day-to-day activities of different city departments.
Key Insights
→ Users spend more time searching than analysing
Although city data already exists, it is distributed across multiple disconnected systems. Participants frequently switched between maps, legal documents, utility records, and planning software before they could complete even routine tasks.
→ Reliable data mattered more than sophisticated visualisation
Participants consistently emphasised that a 3D model is only as valuable as the data behind it. Accurate, up-to-date, and reliable information was considered the platform’s most important feature.
→ Existing tools were built for experts
Current GIS platforms required significant technical knowledge, making everyday tasks unnecessarily complex. Hidden functionality, fragmented workflows and manual processes created a steep learning curve for many users.
→ Collaboration depended on better data sharing
Planning projects often involve multiple departments, but existing systems make collaboration difficult. Participants want the platform to support sharing updates, validating information, and coordinating decisions instead of relying on external communication tools.
→ Repetitive manual work reduced productivity
Interview participants described spending considerable time comparing documents, validating data and correcting inconsistencies. They expected the Digital Twin to automate repetitive tasks and simplify routine workflows.
Design Solutions
The research revealed that the main challenges were not related to the availability of city data itself, but to the way that information was organised, accessed and maintained. Fragmented systems, outdated information and inefficient workflows made everyday planning tasks unnecessarily complex.
→ Unified access to city data
Problem – City information was distributed across multiple disconnected systems, making everyday planning tasks slow and difficult.
Solution – The concept brings together infrastructure, planning, legal and utility data into a unified workspace, allowing users to access and compare information more efficiently.
→ Integrated data layers
Problem – Users struggled to compare information spread across different maps, documents and data sources.
Solution – Layer-based visualisation enables multiple datasets to be explored within the same environment, reducing the need to switch between systems.
→ Better support for collaboration
Problem – Cross-department work was slowed by fragmented information and inconsistent data sharing.
Solution – The concept enables teams to work from the same up-to-date information, supporting more coordinated planning and decision-making.
→ More efficient data management
Problem – Validating and updating city data required repetitive manual work.
Solution – The concept simplifies data comparison and supports faster identification and correction of inconsistencies across multiple datasets.
Usability Testing
The proposed concept was evaluated through a co-design session with participants who had previously taken part in the user interviews. The session was conducted between the low-fidelity and high-fidelity design phases to validate the proposed solution, gather user feedback, and identify opportunities for further refinement.
The feedback informed subsequent design iterations, helping refine the interface and interaction design before the final high-fidelity prototype was developed. Regular feedback sessions with the stakeholder also supported the refinement process throughout the project.
Outcome
User-centred research, stakeholder engagement, and iterative design informed a scalable Digital Twin concept grounded in the needs and workflows of Tallinn’s municipal employees. The project explored new ways of accessing, understanding, and interacting with city data through a research-driven design process, translating user insights into a high-fidelity prototype.
The final outcome was a high-fidelity prototype supported by research-based recommendations for the future development of Tallinn’s Digital Twin platform.