Getting to know Civic Design
By: Louis Rosenfeld
Tags: Citizen Engagement, Civic Innovation, Civic Engagement, User Experience, Civic Design

John Snow’s Cholera Map of 1854. If you think about it, it’s actually an amazing example of early civic design. More from The Guardian.

TLDR version: We’re launching a new community and conference on civic design; sign up here for details/announcements.

Talk talk talk

Over the last couple of months, I’ve been on a listening tour, meeting over 40 designers and researchers, as well as some design-adjacent folks, who work in or with the public sector. I’ve been trying to paint a landscape of the state of design in all kinds of government settings: national, regional, and local, outside the US and within.

It’s been absolutely fascinating. I knew the public sector was rich and complex, but with each new conversation, it’s clear that there’s so much more to it than I’d ever imagined. And lots of interesting surprises. For example, the sector doesn’t yet seem to offer a clear career path for designers—there’s a lingering expectation that they come from the private sector, and unto that sector they shall return. The people I’ve been talking with are struggling to change that; what an amazing undertaking!

I’m also learning some memorable new phrases. My favorite: “hacking procurement”.

Talk about what?

Speaking of phrases, it’s not even clear what to call this stuff. The people I’ve spoken with identify with a wide variety of terms. Some are new (to me, at least), like civic tech, citizen experience, and civic service design. Others are borrowed: customer experience, human-centered design, and service design. Each has at least a slightly different meaning than you’d find in the private sector.

There’s even more ambiguity in terms of who is ultimately being served: customers, clients, the public, citizens, people, users, residents, not to mention veterans, patients, taxpayers, and beneficiaries… And issues like whether or not to use a term like “citizen” are explosive—at least in places with nativist tendencies, like the US.

I’m drawn to the term that seems to come with the least baggage: civic design. Whitney Quesenbery and Dana Chisnell, two of the most widely respected civic designers, named their organization the Center for Civic Design, it seems a smart term to bet on.

In any case, I’m grateful to all these designers, whatever they call themselves: they’ve been so generous in sharing their knowledge with me. In fact, some seem almost desperate to talk about their experiences in planting design in public sector settings, not to mention sharing a war story or two.

Why all the talk?

I’m hoping we can provide an outlet for this pent-up urge to share and be heard. Rosenfeld Media is establishing a new community and related conference to provide people connected to civic design with new opportunities to share and learn together. We’ll use the same model we’ve employed with our other three pairs of communities and conferences (Advancing Research, DesignOps, and Enterprise Experience):

Our Civic Design Community will host monthly presentations and conversations throughout the year, as well as a newsletter that highlights valuable content. It’ll be free to join and participate; sign up here to be invited to our first event.

The first annual Civic Design conference will be a polished, lovingly-produced snapshot of the community’s ongoing conversation. The first edition of the conference will take place virtually December 8–10. Sign up here and we’ll let you know about opportunities to speak, facilitate, and apply for scholarships to attend.

will be a polished, lovingly-produced snapshot of the community’s ongoing conversation. The first edition of the conference will take place virtually December 8–10. Sign up here and we’ll let you know about opportunities to speak, facilitate, and apply for scholarships to attend. A professional (yes, paid) curation team of civic designers who are responsible for facilitating the community’s conversation, and who design the conference program. Our initial curation team is made up of Ariel Kennan (Senior Fellow, Beeck Center for Social Impact + Innovation), Sarah Brooks (IBM Distinguished Designer), Charlotte Lee (CEO, Kastling Group), and Martha Dorris (Founder and CEO, Dorris Consulting International), with support from yours truly and the Rosenfeld Media team. Ariel, Sarah, Charlotte, and Martha bring an amazing diversity of experiences in different facets of the public sector, and I’m thrilled to work with them both.

Another home?

Is another home for discussing civic design even necessary? After all, there are already excellent events like the Code for America Summit and AIGA’s Dot.Gov Design, not to mention scores of communities that cater to just about every stripe of civic designer you can imagine.

We’re hoping that having a more general and inclusive setting for hosting civic design conversations brings many of those segments together. For example, because they work where the rubber meets the road, municipal-level civic designers have a lot to teach their peers who work at national agencies. And vice versa. Another example: did you know that Estonia’s design system may be the most advanced created by a national government? Sometimes the best lessons are found where you might least expect. I hope our community will be a go-to setting for cross-pollinating learning across the world of civic design.

Also, the heroic efforts to create communities and conferences often fizzle out once it comes to maintaining those efforts. Their creators already have day jobs, and there isn’t a business model for sustaining them. I know, because I’ve been there: as a veteran of decades of efforts to stand up multiple communities and conferences, only to see them stumble and sometimes die, I’m excited by the success that Rosenfeld Media has had with our own efforts to scale conversation in the design world. In a way, we’re something of a public-private partnership.

Join the conversation

I’m not sure who will show up for these conversations. I’m especially hopeful that we’ll be able to draw the people who are “design-adjacent”: the public servants who, say, have suddenly been asked to convert a paper form to a web form and don’t know where to start. And the program managers who have assigned that form project. These folks may not have heard the term “user experience,” or haven’t considered adding design skills to their toolkits. They just want to improve the products and services they’re responsible for. And, in a way, they’re more important than anyone else involved in civic design, as they’re the ones who—slowly, over time—will change the public sector from the inside. Engaging them in the conversation will be a huge challenge, but one we’re excited to tackle.

If you believe that design is a critical tool for the public sector—whether you’re one of those design-adjacent folks, or you work as a designer, researcher, strategist, or product manager for a government agency, think tank, or consultancy—I hope you’ll join us. Sign up here for announcements about year-round free activities and events, as well as details about how to get involved in the conference as a speaker or attendee.