Cityscope
Designing a Hyperlocal Digital Infrastructure
Context
Cityscope began as a hyperlocal news and information platform focused on smaller Indian cities. As shown in the original product overview Cityscope, the intention was to provide a locally focused lens through which citizens and visitors could engage with their city in a visual and interactive way.
At the time, most digital media platforms concentrated on larger metropolitan areas. Smaller cities lacked structured digital ecosystems for local news, events, collaborations, and business discovery.
I joined Cityscope in its early stage as a full-time UI/UX designer, working closely with the founding team on research, information architecture, and interface systems. Over time, my role evolved. I later designed the CMS as an external designer and continue to contribute as a design consultant as the product expands and shifts direction.
Phase One: Discovery & Civic Engagement
In its first iteration, Cityscope functioned as a hyperlocal discovery and news tool.
The interface drew inspiration from newspaper layouts, as noted in the original documentation Cityscope, but translated into a mobile-first experience. Citizens could:
Discover city-specific news
Contribute articles and photographs
Report local issues
Filter for positive news
The “positive news” filter was introduced to balance civic reporting with uplifting stories, reflecting a conscious editorial stance Letter of recommendation_Rajvi ….
During this stage, I was deeply involved in:
Primary and secondary research
Persona creation
Information architecture
Feature conceptualisation
User journeys
Design workshops
The product was positioned as both informational and participatory.
Product Evolution: From News Platform to Hyperlocal Network
As the startup matured, the core vision shifted.
Cityscope expanded from a civic news tool into a collaborative ecosystem connecting:
Businesses
Creators
Event organisers
Audiences
It evolved into a hybrid B2C and B2B platform that allowed:
Event ticketing
Business listings
Collaborative campaigns
Editorial storytelling
Podcast content featuring local businesses
This shift required rethinking the entire navigation system and platform structure. What began as a content feed gradually transformed into a multi-layered ecosystem.
My involvement also transitioned. After the initial product phase, I returned as an external designer to architect the CMS that would support this expansion.
Designing for Two Audiences Simultaneously
Cityscope required designing two interconnected but structurally different products:
Audience Layer (B2C)
Locals and visitors discovering:
Events
Offers
Stories
Collaborations
The website was prioritised for discovery due to SEO benefits and lower friction for visitors who would not download an app for short-term city exploration.
Business Layer (B2B)
Venues, performers, creators, and brands managing:
Event creation
Content publishing
Offers
Collaborations
Marketing visibility
Businesses required real-time notifications and dashboards. This led to the creation of a partner-facing application.
Designing both layers required separating functionality while maintaining system coherence.
Information Architecture at City Scale
The platform was designed to scale nationally, beginning with Jaipur and Udaipur.
A key architectural challenge was managing multi-city content while preventing content overwhelm. The CMS sitemap 16 illustrates how cities were structurally linked yet allowed restricted permissions when necessary.
Each city had:
Its own content team
City-specific publishing rights
Shared visibility rules for cross-city content
The system allowed centralised oversight while maintaining decentralised editorial control.
This required designing:
Role-based admin hierarchies
Master admin permissions
City editor access levels
Cross-city publishing logic
The complexity lay not in creating categories, but in defining governance.
CMS Architecture
When I returned to design the CMS, the focus shifted from interface aesthetics to structural clarity.
As documented in the CMS interface overview 912, the goal was to:
Keep the interface simple
Prioritise navigational clarity
Support internal workflows
Create a component library and design system
The CMS needed to manage both the app and the website from a single system 16. It supported:
Event creation
Article publishing
Offer listings
Collaboration announcements
Approval workflows
Businesses submitted content through the partner app, which then entered an internal approval cycle before publication.
Designing this required mapping the full lifecycle of content:
Creation → Submission → Review → Approval → City-specific publishing → Discovery → Ticketing.
Personalisation & Behavioural Logic
Users selected interests during onboarding. Over time, the system tracked behaviour to surface relevant content.
The challenge was maintaining editorial curation while introducing algorithmic relevance.
Locals and visitors encountered different emphases. Visitors were guided toward discovery, while locals encountered collaborative opportunities and recurring events.
The structure had to adapt without overwhelming.
Business Model & Real Constraints
Cityscope generates revenue through:
Ticketing
Business subscriptions
Design decisions were therefore inseparable from monetisation logic. Unlike agency work, this project required thinking through sustainability. Features were prioritised based on feasibility and revenue impact.
Budget constraints influenced sequencing. Some ideas were phased out. Others were simplified. Working within startup realities reshaped how I approached feature design.
Ongoing Role & Continuity
My relationship with Cityscope did not end after launch.
I transitioned from full-time designer to external consultant and continue to contribute to UX and feature development as the product evolves.
This continuity allowed me to observe how early architectural decisions impact long-term scalability.
Outcome & Reflections
Cityscope successfully launched in Jaipur and Udaipur and has onboarded multiple business subscribers while generating ticketing revenue.
This project allowed me to move beyond designing individual interfaces and engage with platform infrastructure. I learned how governance, scalability, editorial tone, and monetisation intersect within digital systems.
It also required designing tools for both B2B and B2C users simultaneously, each with different motivations and behaviours.
Most importantly, it demonstrated that digital products are not static. They evolve. Designing for evolution rather than finality became one of the most significant lessons of this project.
