Trust in public institutions is at an all time low. We need bold design.
We need design where the goal is not only solutions
And where the unit of analysis is not always the user.
Our public institutions need to be imagined as shared spaces for play, creativity, and action.
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From a focus on addressing individual needs…. to a focus on generating civic value
From Human Centered Design…. to Public Centered Design
explore this shift in design
Meaningful Inefficiencies: Civic Design in an Age of Digital Expediency
Public trust in the institutions that mediate civic life-from governing bodies to newsrooms-is low. In facing this challenge, many organizations assume that ensuring greater efficiency will build trust. As a result, these organizations are quick to adopt new technologies to enhance what they do, whether it's a new app or dashboard. However, efficiency, or charting a path to a goal with the least amount of friction, is not itself always built on a foundation of trust.
Meaningful Inefficiencies provides a framework to think about public centered design, where practitioners, from government to newsrooms and beyond, are shaping human systems by building room to play and care.
The book provides a readable and passionate introduction to the practices and challenges of civic design, which puts publics at the center of the design process.
Rebuild Trust in Public Institutions
Public Centered Design is…
a process
Co-creating playing field
Establishing clear rules and goals
Freedom to play
Creating the conditions for care
a set of practices
1 . Network building
2. Holding Space
3. Distributing Ownership
4. Persistent Input
new metrics for a new world
Capturing practices and assessing progress towards sustainable social infrastructure. Check out the free Meetr tool for self-assessment of public centered design.
Evidence of Impact
how have ideas from this book influenced design practice?
Governments are looking beyond their walls to create better mechanisms to make decisions, newsrooms are rethinking extractive journalism and business models, and universities understand that they need to collaborate more effectively with community. Below are just a few examples of public institutions that have drawn on ideas from the book to influence their approach to civic design.
This is Meetr.
A tool that helps innovators measure the civic and social value of their work.
Building Capacity of Engagement Journalism
Meetr is an evaluation tool developed in collaboration between the Engagement Lab at Emerson College and the Agora Journalism Center at the University of Oregon. The tool has been adopted in dozens of newsroom and government offices already and is free and easy to use. It measures progress along two axes: social infrastructure and objective, and it keeps track of the four practices of public centered design: network building, holding space, distributed ownership and persistent input. Find out more.
Citizen-Centered Smart City
BetaBlocks is a prototype of a community-centered smart city process in Boston, MA. In collaboration with the Mayor’s Office of New Urban Mechanics, the BetaBlocks project created the conditions for community groups to define the problem, identify technologies, and determine the terms of exploration. Read the BetaBlocks report here.
Collaborative Governance Initiative
The Collaborative Governance Initiative is an effort in Boston, MA that is convening a network of stakeholders from community, government, academia and the private sector to imagine, create and explore possibilities of effective collaborative governance in the city.
Meet the Authors
Eric Gordon
Eric Gordon is a visiting professor in Comparative Media Studies / Writing at MIT and a professor of Media Art at Emerson College, where he directs the Engagement Lab. His research focuses on the transformation of public life and governance in digital culture, and the incorporation of play into collaborative design processes. He is the author of two books about media and cities (The Urban Spectator (2010) and Net Locality (2011)) and is the editor of Civic Media: Technology, Design, Practice (MIT Press, 2016) and the forthcoming Ludics: Play as Humanistic Inquiry (Palgrave, 2020). His most recent monograph (with Gabriel Mugar), Meaningful Inefficiencies: Civic Design in an Age of Digital Expediency (Oxford University Press, 2020) examines practices in government, journalism and NGOs that reimagine urban innovation beyond efficiency.
Gabriel Mugar
Gabriel Mugar is a Qualitative Researcher at Facebook where he explores the interactions between public figures and their audience. Prior to Facebook he was a Design Research Lead at IDEO where he specialized in working with communities and organizations to design opportunities for learning and collaboration. At IDEO, he explored challenges around learning and collaboration across a range of settings, including State and Federal government, consumer technology, retail, and professional services.
Gabriel holds a Ph.D. in Information Science and Technology from the Syracuse University School of Information Studies.