Summary
Four female leads at Coforma reflect on their first year in civic design: a Product Design Lead, a Design Research Lead, a Content Design Lead and a DesignOps Lead. Using diaries, they'll journal about their prior experiences (10 years back), their first year at Coforma, and postulate on the 10 years ahead. Framed in their respective areas of practice, our four panelists will discuss design as discipline, as experience, as architecture and as vehicle for revolutionary change. We hope to uncover multi-potentialities within the civic design and technology space that could influence endless improvements within the private sector.
Key Insights
-
•
New Civic designers often start with naive beliefs of being design 'heroes' but learn to value collaboration and humility over time.
-
•
Power in design is fluid, intersectional, and can shift depending on context, relationships, and systemic structures.
-
•
Design can unintentionally reinforce existing power structures if practitioners do not critically reflect on whom they serve and how.
-
•
Gatekeeping in design occurs not only through credentials but also through specialized jargon and practices that exclude outsiders.
-
•
The hero’s journey framework, while useful, may be too individualistic for interpreting Civic design work, which should focus on community and collective journeys.
-
•
Effective Civic design emphasizes relationship-building and trust over just applying design methods or delivering isolated outputs.
-
•
There is a growing expectation and policy mandate, like the recent executive order, to embed human-centered design as a core, not optional, part of government technology.
-
•
Design research should expand beyond service delivery to influence upstream policy and program design in government.
-
•
A shift from short-term, transactional user engagement toward long-term, relational collaboration can help rebuild trust between communities and government.
-
•
Designers have a responsibility to consider the environmental impact of design decisions, such as digital consumption’s contribution to greenhouse gas emissions.
Notable Quotes
"We realized we had a common call to adventure: a service mindset instilled early that drove us to solve meaningful problems."
"I had to question whether I was advocating for solutions that truly helped people or just making myself feel good."
"Creating a culture of human-centered design isn’t about methods but about building trust and sometimes giving up ownership."
"Power can feel liquid—you might hold power in some rooms but not in others."
"Gatekeeping in design happens through credentials, jargon, and practice-level norms that close doors."
"We don’t need another hero; what we need is a journey we’re all on together."
"Inclusive design must become inherent to success, not an added accessory."
"Designers must consider how their decisions impact climate change given the significant emissions from digital consumption."
"Research and design need to shift upstream, involved early in policy and program visioning, not just implementation."
"Hiring people you want to design for is a powerful way to shift hierarchical structures in institutions."
Or choose a question:
More Videos
"Policies must evolve to reflect the urgency of our situation."
Alex Hurworth Bonnie John Fahd Arshad Antoine MarinDesigning a Contact Tracing App for Universal Access
October 23, 2020
"We started to ask ourselves, does every new Design Ops practitioner need 10 years of experience like Lisa and I? What opportunities are we missing by not having more junior roles?"
Laine Riley Prokay Lisa GordonCarving a Path for Early Career DesignOps Practitioners
September 9, 2022
"Once cash prizes were gone, people stopped feeling ownership of the design system."
Eniola OluwoleLessons From the DesignOps Journey of the World's Largest Travel Site
October 24, 2019
"Most strategy is done pretty poorly; it's misleading, sloppy, and often ignored after it's produced."
Nathan ShedroffDouble Your Mileage: Use Your Research Strategically
March 31, 2020
"Mobile browsers are typically updated with the OS, reducing variability compared to desktop browser versions."
Sam ProulxMobile Accessibility: Why Moving Accessibility Beyond the Desktop is Critical in a Mobile-first World
November 17, 2022
"The program creates predictability so teams know when to submit questions and when findings will come."
Feleesha SterlingBuilding a Rapid Research Program (Videoconference)
May 18, 2023
"Bumble’s single feature of women making the first move addressed a huge cultural challenge and lifted the brand."
Neil BarrieWidening the Aperture: The Case for Taking a Broader Lens to the Dialogue between Products and Culture
March 25, 2024
"Incremental improvements and disruptive innovation require very different methods and measures."
John DevanneyThe Design Management Office
November 6, 2017
"The higher up you go, the more qualities like bravery matter compared to methodology."
Katy MogalBut Do Your Insights Scale?
March 12, 2021