Design Action Research with Government (DARG) is a guide for creating civic innovation projects.

• guides

• Building inside government
• Public Private Partnerships

Studios are nodes of community, design education, and localized impact within university campuses across the U.S.

• students

• Meet the others
• Academia
• In-person meetings

This laboratory was formed as an effort to develop design methods and practices, which on the one hand are based on technological developments, and on the other, based on the development of social, cultural, and political issues and theories.

• Research and policy centers
• Academia
• Design

Investigating the empirical case of urban biking activists in Madrid, we explore how the design of the digital platform Decide Madrid impacted the collaborative practices involved in digital participatory budgeting. We found that the design of the platform made the interaction competitive, where individuals sought to gain votes for their single proposals, rather than consider the relations across proposals and the larger context of the city decisions, even if the institutional process rewarded collective support.

• cycling

• Engagement tech
• Participatory democracy
• Participatory budgeting

Design for Civic Change is a professional development program for government workers interested in implementing community-engaged design within their work.

• trainings
• coaching

• Govtech
• Participatory democracy

Our mission is to ensure that information technology and social media play a proactive role in supporting democracy and human rights globally.

• Media
• Fight disinformation
• Foundation initiatives

Design With is a free, self-scheduled guide to collaborative design for social change.

• Design
• Co-design

We are a collective that helps designers impacted by the conflict in Ukraine reach safety and find new work opportunities.

• Ukraine

• Design

A design study and report on how digital technology is changing how we design cities

• cities

• Design

Case Studies from Around the World

• Design
• Books

IIT Institute of Design (ID) is a graduate design school with a history of innovation. ID pioneered the development and dissemination of modern design from its founding in 1937 as the New Bauhaus in Chicago. Today, our graduate design school focuses on global challenges. We prepare designers to take on the worlds complex, fast-changing, and unpredictable problems such as competitiveness, digital media and learning, health and wellbeing, and social innovation.

• The People
• Build something
• Toolkits

18 - 20 November 2019 in Rotterdam

• The Tech
• The People
• Govtech

Design Gigs for Good is a free community-driven resource to help more people use the tools of design to create positive social change.

• The People
• Find a job or hire someone
• Job boards

Design Action provides graphic design and visual communications for progressive, non-profit, and social change organizations. By providing high-quality professional graphic design and web development services, we aim to help build and strengthen progressive movements fighting for economic and social justice.

• Civic and social impact companies

Where technologists and communities work together to explore and build new solutions for New Yorkers

• The People
• Build something
• User research

Design for America is an idea incubator, a motivated community, and a way of approaching complicated challenges. DFA shapes the next generation of social innovators.

• Courses
• Innovation teams and labs
• User research

Collaborating with Philadelphians to design better City policies and services.

• Govtech
• Design
• Service delivery

Supports research, implementation and education projects involving multi-sector teams that focus on the responsible design, development or deployment of technologies.

• Get funding
• Funders & donors
• Build something

A design toolkit for USAID staff on how to design inclusive digital technology interventions, written for work on global hunger but applicable in many other contexts.

• Zero hunger

• Design
• Toolkits
• Playbooks and design principles

A curriculum for the Service Design 101 course with readings and case studies

• Courses
• Reading lists
• Service delivery

A pilot program that connected a cohort of volunteer experts with City staff to answer questions and make recommendations using best practices in user research. Seattle By Design is a partnership between U.S Digital Response (USDR) and Seattle Innovation & Performance.

• cities

• Govtech
• Design
• Co-design

Use this design system to make government services consistent with GOV.UK. Learn from the research and experience of other service teams and avoid repeating work that’s already been done.

• Govtech
• Design
• Playbooks and design principles

A space for policymakers, tech companies and web users to shape a safer, more empowering web.

• Ethical tech and responsible tech
• Roundtables

Case studies, blog posts, and Airtables with examples

• Adjacent Fields
• Ethical tech and responsible tech
• Design

Users choose which resources they want to "consume", or load, to reduce the website's footprint

• Climate action
• 2023 Webby Awards

• Design
• Social impact design firms

We offer tailored UX coaching to help you and your team build usable, well-designed tools.

• coaching

• The People
• Build something

An open guide promoting participatory urban planning

• cities
• guides

• Urban planning

A conference for people who work in the intersection of design and the public sector.

• Conferences
• Design

Berkman Klein center research effort: GLOBAL COHORT OF EARLY-CAREER SCHOLARS AND PRACTITIONERS EXPLORES THE ETHICAL AND HUMAN RIGHTS CONSIDERATIONS OF DIGITAL IDENTITY IN TIMES OF CRISIS

• Identity

A library of design interventions to encourage prosocial behaviors online

• Ethical tech and responsible tech
• Design
• Research tools

A growing archive of 1000+ design resources, weekly updated for the community.

• resources

• Design

An Airtable of over 200 social change design firms led by BIPoC. Curated by George Aye.

• Civic tech catalogs
• Design
• Social impact design firms

The Technology Assessment Design Handbook offers both GAO’s own staff and other interested users tools and approaches to think about when designing technology assessments.

• handbooks

• Govtech
• Procurement

• Learn about civic tech
• Find a job or hire someone
• Reading lists

DxD is an annual exhibition celebrating tangible and multimedia expressions of New York City’s Open Data. It provides space for creative engagement with data and new perspectives and understanding of its role in our society.

• Data visualization
• Artistic interventions

Civic Service Design refers to the practice of creating, better understanding, and improving upon programs at any stage; we use “civic service design” to mean applying the tools and methods of service design to government-run or funded programs.

• Design
• Playbooks and design principles

Mechanism Design for Social Good (MD4SG) is a multi-institutional initiative using techniques from algorithms, optimization, and mechanism design, along with insights from other disciplines, to improve access to opportunity for historically underserved and disadvantaged communities.

• Ethical tech and responsible tech

The Design System makes it easy for state digital teams to build accessible, consistent, and performant services and products to meet Californians’ needs.

• Govtech
• Design
• Playbooks and design principles

We make one-year, $50,000 investments in faculty from across the university who want to conceptualize new impact labs through participation in our year-long Impact Lab Design Fellowship.

• Fellowships
• Design

Collaborating with Philadelphians to design better City policies and services.

• Govtech
• Design
• Co-design

The Civic Design Library is a crowdsourced data set of civic design resources created by global practitioners working at the intersection of design and the public sector.

• Civic tech catalogs
• Design

Join us as the 2022 Civic Design Fellow. In a 4-month program, from January to April, you’ll take your interest in democracy as a design problem to the next level, working with the Center for Civic Design team and completing an independent project exploring the intersection of language access and voting participation.

• Fellowships
• Design

A 501(c)3 nonprofit that works with residents, organizations, and municipalities to help improve the quality of life of all people in communities. We do this through engagement, education, connection and design.

• Design

I-­SEEED strives to build an ecosystem of “solutionists” to solve our communities’ most pressing social problems. I-SEEED believe that through innovative economic, educational, environmental design, and cutting edge technology, we can create just and sustainable communities for all.

• Sustainable cities and communities

• Graveyard

The UK government's design principles and examples of how they've been used.

• Digital standards

• The Tech
• The People
• Emerging tech

Democracy is a design problem

• US Election 2020

• Voting and elections
• Civic and social impact companies
• Election administration

A list of design systems and CSS frameworks used by governments around the world

• The People
• Build something
• Playbooks and design principles