Ashley Cortez
Design Lead, NYC Mayor’s Office for Economic Opportunity, Service Design Studio
Devika Menon
Service Design Strategist, City of Philadelphia
Nidhi Singh Rathore
Assistant Professor of Design, Corcoran School of Arts & Design at George Washington University
Danita J. Reese
Service Design Strategist, City of Philadelphia
Mari Nakano
Director of Design, NYC Mayor’s Office for Economic Opportunity, Service Design Studio
Summary
This session is a panel discussion about what community-centered design looks like in local government. We’ll talk about why it’s important to collaborate with communities, the conditions that are required to practice community-centered design, and what it looks like in action.
Key Insights
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Community-centered design in government requires shifting decision-making power to those most impacted by policies and services.
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Service designers must decentralize expertise and act as facilitators rather than sole problem solvers.
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Frontline staff voices are as critical as resident voices in designing equitable government services.
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Emotional capacity and vulnerability among design teams are necessary conditions for effective community engagement.
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Realistic timelines and political will are preconditions to meaningful community-centered design work.
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Transparency with communities protects trust and supports honest relationship-building.
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Embedding city staff within design teams helps balance priorities and fosters collaboration across hierarchies.
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Trauma-informed approaches help designers and government workers sit with discomfort and adapt to emergent community needs.
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Sustainability of community-driven initiatives requires dedicated funding and continuation beyond initial projects.
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Soft landings and intentional check-ins foster psychological safety and candidness among government colleagues.
Notable Quotes
"We see not only community members, but also direct service providers as embodying and shaping the community itself."
"Community-centered design flips the traditional script so people most impacted are the ones designing and making decisions."
"When stepping into government projects, we seek to have community members steer the project’s main inflection points and outcomes."
"Community-centered work often begins with letting go of attachment as designers to power and control."
"Discomfort is literally part of the design process and a place we sit in to move into new ways of working together."
"Sometimes a community-centered approach might look like deciding not to engage to avoid causing trauma or harm."
"Transparency will protect you when everything else can’t."
"We want to create space for people to feel liberated to speak for themselves rather than be buried in administrative burdens."
"People will not remember what you say, but they will remember how you make them feel."
"Our role as designers is to facilitate space where residents and frontline staff do all the magic."
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