Goals for Developing a Road Map to Community-Driven Design

Linna Griffin
Jul 10, 2017 · 3 min read

After Reviewing the writing of Design Impact’s Metathemes: Designing for equitable social change my colleague, Rae, synthesized a rough outline for our work later on down the Production pipe-line. After eight more weeks, we are expected to produce a Guide for how to recreate the Senior Class of the School of Design’s Process in order to encourage community driven Design. What follows is a condensed version of Rae’s outline with a few of my own thoughts.

Guide Structure

Narrative that Communicates the Hazelwood Project as a Case Study.

Wherein we must highlight the benefits of Design based on Community Action. This is a good time to briefly go over some of the tools we briefly mention (Community Probes, Design Probes, Stakeholder Maps, Swim lanes, etc)

Insights and Conclusions

In this section we are to introduce what the class had learned and discovered by the end of the exhibit and take it one step further by explaining how they arrived at these conclusions using their Tools. Something we could possibly do is ask our classmates if they can recall specific examples wherein this occurred.

Methods and Tools

Describe the Make-Tools and Design Probes we used and how they were used. This has to be presented to the user in a manner where they first get a description of what these tools are used for, how they are used, and what insights can be developed with their data. Rae and I will have to replicate the tools in a manner that lowers the barrier of entry for new users, making the activities easy to do on one’s own without instruction.

In this section, it will also be important for use to explain Iteration. The Generative process, with its tools and resources, is often confused with the final product. To think of the Hazelwood exhibit from a Visitor’s perspective, they will never have to see the different iterations of each exhibit. They weren’t around to see the cardboard prototypes and the 3D models. However, anyone trying to prototype a space in the community for the community should know about these iterative techniques.

Project Depth

This will be an overview of the process with references to past topics of discussion (ie. Community probes, Subject Mapping etc) will be to used to provide a clear understanding of the depth of a project like this one. From what I understand about this section, this is where we explain how the design methods fit into each mode in the process.

I. We need to Synthesize and Share the Design Process and Cultural Probes Used.

A. Cultural Probes — Used for Building Trust

B. Map of the: History, Social Capital, Education and Culture, Business and Economic Conditions

C. Power and Politics Stakeholder Map.

II. Investigate how Innovative Uses of Design Thinking/Prototyping/Crafting identified key needs and opportunities in the community while promoting Awareness and Interaction beyond the Audience. This is the process of testing the ideas explored in the exhibit and realizing how they work in practice. It is important to Include the process of Refine and Reworking a project. To do this we will have to:

A. Collect Stories Visitors leave behind

B. Gauge How Successful these Activities Were

III. Then Develop a Road map for Ongoing Participation and Conversation. This will give the Project longevity and further reach by creating an interface in and around the design space. This could take the form of a website, an infrastructure to archive in-space activities, and Do-it yourself kits.


So What Do I Do Now?

The Next Steps in this Process

I have to run this version of the Goals past Rae, see if she likes my ideas, and then begin Elaborating upon some of these subjects. This means creating lists of the tools we learned before going on to define each individually. While this is happening, I can suggest making an graphic outline to help visually organize the information we are gathering.

My job will be to go to the exhibit and review the interactive sections of the exhibit considering I am only a short drive away from the exhibit. So I will need to email the Pastor there and request a time to visit, or at least make him aware of my presence later this week during exhibit hours.

Linna Griffin

Written by

Interaction Designer with a passion for Research and Insights

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