Key Insights

• •

  Designing with a temporal context—considering the next largest time scale—can transform civic design thinking.

• •

  Slowing down government design processes is as critical as responding urgently; balancing these tensions is a key paradox.

• •

  Civic action by citizens can serve as a proof of concept that pushes government to adopt and implement services.

• •

  Building trust internally within organizations through transparent practices like pay transparency enables better civic outcomes.

• •

  Hiring people with lived experience who reflect the community being served shifts power and builds equitable design processes.

• •

  The concept of pace layers helps understand that culture changes slowly while commerce and infrastructure can change quickly.

• •

  Measuring success in civic design requires different metrics depending on the scale and pace of interventions.

• •

  Legacy digital systems demonstrate the long-term impact and unintended persistence of earlier civic design work.

• •

  Trust can be viewed as a meta goal embedded across civic projects, shaping approaches and partnerships.

• •

  Entering civic design can be both fulfilling and intimidating due to impostor syndrome; collective community and open dialogue ease this.

Notable Quotes