Leading with Listening
Human-Centered Design Meets Political Tech
Meaningful change doesn’t start with wild ideas. It starts, rather, with stories.
In the past few months of working at Alloy, I’ve had the great pleasure of sitting down with data practitioners across the progressive ecosystem and hearing their stories. There’s nothing they need to prepare for these conversations; nothing they need to fundraise for, or pitch to anyone, or problem-solve. Instead, we ask them to share their stories with us, and we listen. We ask questions to dig deeper. We listen more. And then, we design.
Our conversations with these practitioners usually start in the world of facts and figures; datasets and infrastructure; tools and tech. By the end, though, we’re talking about something so much greater than that: these practitioners, driven by a fierce passion for making real change, are coming up against incredibly frustrating pain points in their work. Data quality. Data infrastructure. Complexities that get in the way of what they have ultimately dedicated their careers to: shepherding in progressive change, at a time the country needs it more than ever.
…and these are the kinds of moments we designers live for. We feel it right down in our bones. This — this electricity, created by hearing your stories again and again, is the guiding light for our design process, and ultimately how Alloy will develop products and services for the progressive ecosystem.
As we develop products and services for the progressive ecosystem, know that these are the principles we live by:
*We lead with listening.
Whether or not we have hypotheses about what solutions to build or how to build it, we always kick off our projects with a listening tour. We don’t want to make guesses about what would solve your data challenges; we want to hear what you need, straight from you.
*We don’t believe that just sitting around a conference room table talking about ideas among ourselves will actually make our ideas all that much better.
Instead, we turn to the people actually using these products as our inspiration at each leg of the journey. Our designers, product managers, engineers, and data scientists join in on these conversations with you. Your testimonies hum in our heads as we make product decisions and build our roadmaps. We go back and reference our notes more times than you probably imagine. Everything from “what should Alloy build?” to “how should it work?” to “how will users go through the experience?” will be inspired by your stories, your challenges, your input.
*We remember the human behind the data.
While our products and services center on tech and data, we know at the end of the day it’s a real person who has to use these things. It’s the dedicated expert. It’s the new entrant who envisions a different way of doing things. It’s the field organizer who steps into a data role because she is called to the plate when her organization needs her. It’s the passionate volunteer who perhaps has a limited technical background, but brings a whole lot of heart.
The magic of this human-centered approach is that there’s always something we learn when we make space for a data practitioner to walk us through their current state challenges, or when they provide feedback for early iterations of our products. There are always insights from you that help us make early pivots and iterations to our work, that ultimately help us serve you — and the ecosystem — much better, and much faster.
That’s why our design team — Chris, Annie, Xena, and myself — leads with an approach called Human-Centered Design. We always remember who’s on the receiving end of these tech and data tools, and we are designing with you in mind at each turn.
Right now, America finds itself in a time where we see a disappointing lack of compassion, empathy, and community-fostering from people who hold places of power. We at Alloy not only strive to give progressive organizations the tools they need to shepherd those values back into our communities and governing bodies, but we infuse those very values into the way we develop our products, too.
Want to share your stories with us?
Reach out to us at design@alloy.us. We’d love to include you in our listening tour.
Allison is a Senior Designer & Researcher at Alloy. Find more about her journey here.
