Do Tank and the Democracy Design Workshop
Some fascinating experimental efforts for civic society/participation via Do Tank and the Democracy Design WorkshopAbout the Do Tank and the Democracy Design Workshop The Do Tank strives to strengthen the ability of groups to solve problems, make decisions, resolve conflict and govern themselves by designing software and legal code to promote collaboration. Tools alone cannot create a culture of strong groups. Hence Do Tank projects address the role of legal and political institutions, social and business practices and the visual and graphical technologies -- what we term the "social code" -- that may allow groups, not only to foster community, but to take action.
Our innovation laboratory centers around three fundamental design principles:
- Design for the group not the individual. In groups people can accomplish what they cannot do alone.
- Make the group graphical. Use the graphical, networked screen to help the group see its own values, rules and practices, thereby giving rise to social institutions.
- Embed structures through technology. Improve collaboration through the design of social and legal structures and replicate those structures through the interface.
The Do Tank targets the "capability gap" in practicing collaboration and forming groups among people who realize the opportunity for more collaborative decision-making in their governments, communities, businesses, or other organizations but do not have the experience, skills, models or tools to fulfill the potential.
I'm fascinated by their intent to design for the group, not the individual. I want to dive into this deeper to understand what this really means. What some of you have heard me say/seen me write is that most of the tools we use ARE designed for groups, but are experienced by the individual behind a computer. How do we bridge this?
posted by Nancy White at 8:39 PM
1 Comments:
Thanks for the link: I was intrigued as well by the mission statement of the Do Tank. As an democratic-minded web designer in the nonprofit sector I too am fascinated with the idea of "designing for a group." This is an attractive idea both for its democratic idealism and its implicit power.
But there are two nagging questions: how the hell do you actually *do* it, and how do you afford it?
It seems to me that there has so far been a very slow movement in the literature of online community building: there are so few resources that address the technical and design issues involved from a collaborative, participatory perspective. And even fewer geared towards folks like me and my clients -- we're working with serious budget constraints.
Participatory design (PD) is a great framework for understanding this problem. PD seeks to understand design problems in the user’s terms, and as a discipline it seeks to solve these problems by addressing the user’s experience at each juncture.
But PD is rooted in Scandinavian theory from the 1950s and, frankly, I don’t see that it has evolved much from that context. (One new book, for example, Participatory IT Design : Designing for Business and Workplace Realities, is extremely obtuse and geared toward large software projects).
And you'd better believe that it costs *lots* more to involve your stakeholders in a thorough website design. Even simple usability tests are going to cost several thousand dollars by the end of the day (or week, rather).
I am a developer who believes that a website -- as its *primary* goal – should build community. But I feel that I am missing a huge piece of the puzzle in terms of theory and literature: how do you meaningfully connect a website's strategy with its stakeholders? A diffuse but growing understading of empowering technologies (like rss, linksharing, photosharing and simplified Content Managment Systems) have made it so much more realistic in the last two years.
Does anyone have any recommendations for involving stakeholders in web design process in a way that is realistic, practical and relatively inexpensive? Perhaps there are some books on facilitation that might provide insight?
Nancy, where else have you written about your concept of user vs. individual experience? Do you know of any valuable websites or texts in this area?
Thanks!
Chris Blow
ORG: http://nonprofitdesign.org
BLOG: http://pictr.org
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