Description
When cities locked down as COVID-19 gripped the world, instructions about what to do were locked down themselves. Trapped in pages and pages of dense legalese public health guidance. In PDFs. Having Google trawl through it was not enough to provide understanding.
As businesses began to reopen, confusion became a matter of life and death. But in public health, clarity and trust are the levers we have to wield. In this session, I will recount how San Francisco has (so far, as of October 2020!) avoided surges of cases, hospitalizations, and deaths with the help of information architecture.
By bringing clarity and trust into the equation, IA helped save tens of thousands of lives. What more can IA do, if we allow it to flourish out in the wider world?
About the speakers
Anita Cheng is a former cancer researcher who went into tech to help people faster. She gets to do just that working for government, currently for San Francisco Digital Services. As a content designer, she’s worked on COVID-19 response and cannabis business permits. Previously, she worked on the websites for affordable housing programs in San Francisco, as well as building inspection at the City of Los Angeles.
Anita has given talks at IA Conference, DotGov Design, Code for America Summit, League of California Cities, and Confab.