I use a lot of play and experiential activities in workshops I design and facilitate but seriousness has come up lately in public consultation and civic assembly work. I think it’s because, unlike codesign or participatory design, there is no specific lived/living experience element to this work. Everyone is in the room because they are, […]

Still trying to help my mother not get scammed by people who phone her demanding money. They use the classic Triple of authority (I am from the Bank or the Police), emotion (something has happened: a payment missed, a fraud detected) and urgency (do this now, tell me your details quickly). It’s battering rush of […]

Mostly because it is so aggravating, this is about desire paths and design. For some reason, desire paths are viewed as a clear proof of the foolishness of design and standards. Look how the crowd forms a path, made from the unity of their shared desires and how that is better than the path design […]

How to Use Tactile Maps in a Consultation Conversation Engaging blind and visually impaired individuals in public consultations can appear challenging, but accessible tactile maps and respectful conversations can play crucial roles. Here is how to effectively use these maps to foster meaningful conversations in consultations. Understanding Mental Models People’s perceptions of routes and places […]

I’ve had an iPhone with a cracked screen for months. I did fit a screen protector and it seemed to be successfully holding back the shattered glass. I was glad of that if aggravated by the broken screen. The thing is…the screen wasn’t broken. The screen protector had absorbed the energy of the drop and […]

Yesterday, I wrote about the material I am developing for a public workshop in Stroud. That was about one side of the main handout. You can read Asking Not Taking about autonomy, saying No and Keeping. This post is about the flipside. This is about what the participants take home and what they do next. […]

I am probably doing an outdoors workshop for Transition Stroud in September. The general theme is change in the town and there is an underlying theme of the climate crisis. It is a hope-based event. I asked to do a new version of the Affirmation, Imagination, Invitation workshop that I have previously run at UX […]

The three core principles of citizens’ assembliesA CA [Citizen Assembly] is a participatory institution which brings together an inclusive group of lay citizens to engage in deliberation on a public issue so as to exert a public influence. CAs hence rely on three core principles: deliberation, inclusion and public influence. Julien Vrydagh(University of Stuttgart) I […]

The replication crisis in social research is ongoing and there was an interesting paper mentioned last week on some related issues. The paper is The replication crisis as mere indicator of two fundamental misalignments and it is concerned with both the methodology issues and the anthropological issues. It is the latter that interest me. The […]

Designing for Autonomy is critical to accessibility. Enabling people to do the thing they want, with the amount of assistance they choose. Personal intent and agency mixed together. What can happen tho is that, in the rush to deliver frictionless usability, the ability to say No disappears. Many products and services support Automy. Autonomy with […]