Insights Panel
Summary
Speakers from the conference will speak on the themes of the conference, reflecting key insights that emerged over the three days and leaving us with critical questions we can carry forward as a community and individuals after the conference.
Key Insights
-
•
Incorporating longer temporal contexts in design can enhance foresight and sustainability in civic projects.
-
•
Civic action often precedes government implementation, acting as proof of concept to drive official adoption.
-
•
Trust is a crucial but delicate asset that must be intentionally built within organizations and communities.
-
•
Hiring designers from the communities they serve builds trust and shifts power towards lived experience.
-
•
Transparency, especially around pay and organizational finances, supports internal trust and equitable work environments.
-
•
The pace layering framework helps distinguish between fast-changing elements like infrastructure and slow cultural shifts in civic design.
-
•
Measuring success in civic projects requires time-scaled frameworks, recognizing some impacts manifest only over years or decades.
-
•
Many civic designers struggle with impostor syndrome despite the field’s inherent ambiguity and evolving practices.
-
•
Zooming out to systemic, long-term goals like rebuilding trust can unify disparate civic initiatives into collective impact.
-
•
Human relationships and authentic community engagement remain the most fulfilling and challenging aspects of civic design work.
Notable Quotes
"The sponge is really full — my brain is pretty full of lots of insights from the last couple of days."
"Who creates the conditions for civic design to slow down? Can we afford to slow down? Can we afford not to slow down?"
"Always design a thing by considering it in this next largest temporal context — a day in a month, a decade in a century."
"Civic action as proof of concept to get government moving, to get the wheels turning was really interesting."
"Building trust within organizations toward methods and processes is essential to onboarding new ways of working."
"Hiring people you want to design for is a powerful way of shifting power and valuing lived experience."
"Pay transparency within organizations is critical for enabling good work and healthier working conditions."
"We are the problem we’re trying to replace — some legacy digital systems we created 20 years ago are still running."
"It’s a marathon not a sprint. Pace yourself and take care of yourself and the other runners around you."
"My younger self had a lot of impostor syndrome, but everyone even with more experience doesn’t totally know what they’re doing."
Or choose a question:
More Videos
"Partnering with market researchers allowed us to ask specific product questions within their long-running exit survey."
Joanna Vodopivec Prabhas PokharelOne Research Team for All - Influence Without Authority
March 9, 2022
"Onboarding often felt like trial by fire—go to the meeting and hope you understand something."
Louis Rosenfeld Lashanda Hodge Senongo Akpem Chris HodowanecBecoming a Civic Designer: Making the Move from Private to Public Sector
November 17, 2022
"We are back and we are right on time. Eight o'clock on the dot."
Bria AlexanderDay 3 Welcome
September 25, 2024
"Am I getting what I wanna get out of this conference? What’s not coming and what would I still like to learn?"
Uday Gajendar Louis RosenfeldDay 2 Welcome
June 5, 2024
"Consistency is so important that sometimes even consistency in failure works if it means I only have to learn the workaround once."
Sam ProulxOnline Shopping: Designing an Accessible Experience
June 7, 2023
"Hiring managers should facilitate hiring decisions but truly rely on the team members who work daily with the candidate."
Russ UngerOnboarding: The Ecosystem, not the Afterthought
November 7, 2017
"No one really knows what to expect anyway, so failure goes largely unnoticed. It's better to be transparent about the mess."
Catherine DubutBridging Physical and Digital Spaces: Approaches to Retail Service Design
March 18, 2021
"Characters live at the extreme of radically adaptive AI—they react in the moment and follow the user’s lead."
Josh Clark Veronika KindredSentient Design: New Postures for AI-Mediated Experiences (2nd of 3 seminars)
January 29, 2025
"My dad told me very early on in my career that I had to work two times harder than anyone else to get the same things."
Dantley DavisLeadership & Diversity—A Fireside Chat with Dantley Davis
September 17, 2020
