Time(s)
Description
We worry a lot about getting designs wrong for our users. The downsides, well, can be pretty dire. But what if you get it right for them? What are the outcomes downstream?
What if your goal was to only make new mistakes? What if you could anticipate the ripple effects of getting the design right for your core user to see what happens when your design goes out into the world and does what you want it to?
In this talk, you’ll learn how to preview (and maybe mitigate) the worst possible outcomes without actually messing anything up. You’ll see how the sense you make of a design for your primary user affects others in the ecosystem.
Key takeaways from the session:
Attendees will learn how
- design decisions have immense network effects
- to be more aware of downstream effects of decisions
- to mitigate possible bad outcomes (even when your intentions are good)
About the speakers
Dana Chisnell is a pioneer and thought leader in civic design. She relentlessly works across government pushing teams to sincerely care about the needs of the people they’re serving through and by design. She does this by asking hard questions to help teams know whether they’re working on solving the right problems and solving the problems right. She has developed approaches for building design capacity within government, including project-based training and basic guidance and tools for DIY design that people love to use, like the Field Guides To Ensuring Voter Intent. In 2019, Dana was named one of the world’s most influential people in digital government by Apolitical.
Dana teaches a field course on design in government at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government in the Masters level Democracy, Politics, and Institutions program. Dana and Jeff Rubin wrote the Handbook of Usability Testing Second Edition (Wiley 2008), the seminal book on the topic.