1.1 User Centered and Inclusive
Being user-centered and inclusive means designing solutions that work for all members of the community, regardless of their background, abilities, or tech-savviness. This principle ensures our projects start with real needs or challenges, and create value for the community.
Why it matters for project success:
Having real users in the community – whether individuals or organizations – is a key ingredient for successful civic tech projects. They can validate whether you’re solving a real problem and provide knowledge or relationships to drive your work forward. Connecting with your users helps you focus your efforts or decide your next step when your project (inevitably) gets a bit stuck.
What it means in practice:
- Doing User Research: Engage with a wide range of community members, including underrepresented groups, using various research methods.
- Designing for Accessibility: Create solutions that are accessible to people with different abilities, devices, and levels of digital literacy.
- Measuring Inclusivity: Set inclusivity goals, monitor usage data, and seek qualitative feedback to ensure your solution benefits all intended users.
Resources to help:
- ‘build with, not for’
- INSERT: Templates for doing user research
- INSERT: guides for usability testing
- INSERT: easy to understand guides to WCAG (maybe from a11y)
- INSERT: example metrics for inclusion
- Human Centred Design and User Research with Ariel Sim
- How to Craft Buyer and User Personas to Benefit Your Business