The Civic Media Codesign Studio provides an opportunity for students interested in working with organizations to develop civic media projects that connect to grounded strategies for social transformation. We typically build teams with diverse skill-sets, including (for example) storytellers, designers, artists, media-makers, developers, researchers, and community organizers, and support the teams through an iterative project development process. We provide design teams with template working agreements, and strive to connect successful projects to the support networks they’ll need to grow and thrive. The co-design studio is also a space for shared inquiry into the theory, history, best practices, and critiques of various approaches to community inclusion in iterative stages of project ideation, design, implementation, testing, and evaluation.
Civic Media Codesign Studio approaches partners not as (solely) consumers, test subjects, or objects of study, and instead imagines them as co-designers and coauthors of shared knowledge, technologies, narratives, and social practices. Our goal is twofold: to develop an understanding of the ways that media and technology design processes often replicate existing power inequalities, while at the same time, moving beyond critique to travel as far down the path of community co-creation as possible, within the constraints of any given project.
Many projects continue at the People’s Collaborative Governance Network.
Project Proposal
This is a group assignment that will take the form of a written document and a presentation. The following sections should be included in the written document:
- Introduction and problem statement (1–2 pages)
- This is a refining of the problem statement developed earlier.
- Literature review (8–10 pages)
- Literature review should include a review of the academic literature on your topic. What disciplines are you exploring and why? This section should include 15–20 references with clear justification for their importance.
- Design philosophy (2–3 pages)
- What approach is your group taking and why? How are you thinking about power in the design process? What design tradition are you most aligned with?
- Proposed Methods (2–3 pages)
- Explain design methods you intend to use, for example, interviews, observations, workshops, creative sessions, etc. Provide as much detail as possible.
- Limitations (2–3 pages)
- What are the limitations of your approach that you already know? Is it time, resources, knowledge gaps, networks, etc.?
In addition to the written report, presentations should be 6-8 minutes long. Pay attention to presentation style and visuals to maximize clarity of information.
Final Presentation
Prototypes should be documented in an appropriate form (website, video, etc.). Presentations should tell the story of the process and outcome.
Presentations should be approximately 10 minutes long.
Design Book
The design book is the documentation of your process from beginning to end. This can take the form of a website, a book, or anything else that represents your process. Design books should tell a compelling story about how you arrived at your completed prototype, and document all the important decision points along the way.
Components:
Project team - Description of your design team, including community mentors. Please include all other partners or contributors that have a stake in the project.
Revised Problem Statement - This is a revised version of the problem statement that was included in the project proposal. It should represent your final prototype.
Revised Literature Review - This is a streamlined version of the literature review that was included in the project proposal. The literature review should be revised and shortened to match your new problem statement.
Process Documentation - Explain your thought process, from early stage thinking to final prototype. Tell a story around your major decision points. Where did your project pivot? What was the reason? Did new input inform choices? Make sure to include relevant mural boards or any other visual documentation you have.
Assessment - How well do you think your prototype works? Why do you think it would work or why won’t it work? What’s your evidence? Have you developed an evaluative framework to understand possible impacts? If resources were not a factor, what would you want to see happen next?
Reflection - Each group member contributes a 2–3 page reflection on the process. Explain what you did, what went well, what could have gone better.
