Designed by Community

a colorful graphic that says "Civic Service Design. Designed by Community" with various pink, green, blue, and yellow shapes around the words.

ROLE UX Designer

TEAM Mari Nakano, Kyla Massey, Sophonie Milande Joseph, Tina Qi

TAKEAWAY A new civic partnership needs to build familiarity before advancing goals with tactics like design.

designed by community

A paid fellowship program created by the Service Design Studio to redistribute planning and decision making power back into New York City communities.


context

As a Coding it Forward Fellow, I spent 10 weeks working with the Service Design Studio (SDS) at NYC Mayor’s Office for Economic Opportunity in 2021. The majority of my work with the studio focused on their newest pilot program, Designed by Community (DxC).

The SDS started the Designed by Community program to redistribute planning and decision making power back into communities. In this first iteration of DxC, the studio asked “Can design serve as a tactic to advance NYCHA community members’ goals; and where does it still have gaps?” The studio supported a total of 8 fellows, each from communities within the New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA), to design and develop their own hyper-localized solutions to the ongoing COVID-19 crisis.

“Can design serve as a tactic to advance NYCHA community members’ goals; and Where does it still have gaps?”

 
five young adults stand outside in front of a wooden wall. They are all smiling and standing in a line.

The Service Design Studio and Designed by Community team meeting in person for the first time in Brooklyn after working remotely.

my role

  • Summarize findings about the Designed by Community program identity.

  • Facilitate design workshops for NYCHA community members to complete final program deliverables.

  • Design social media graphics to share progress with external stakeholders.

  • Support the Service Design Studio with requests from other teams within the NYC Mayor’s Office of Economic Opportunity.

Below you can briefly learn about the Designed by Community Fellows and the program / service they provide to their community.

 
 

objectives

  1. Research and develop material for the first Designed by Community website.

  2. Design social media material to update project stakeholders.

  3. Create a unique reflection on what I learned with the team as a young civic designer.

challenges

  • Low capacity - While serving 8 fellows, our 4-person studio team often needed more staffing to meet the demands of the program.

  • Working remotely - Both the studio team and the NYCHA community members continued to experience persistent challenges related to the impact of COVID-19 as we tackled working remotely.

  • Brief Timeline - As a Coding it Forward Fellow. I had just 10 weeks with the Service Design Studio.

 

outcomes

DESIGNED BY COMMUNITY WEBSITE UX

I designed a site-map and wrote the complete copy for the Designed by Community website. While I cannot display these final works, I’ve shared a brief site-map sketch below.

a scan of paper showing handwritten sketches of a sitemap. One box drawn on the page connects to four boxes below.

SOCIAL MEDIA

I designed social media graphics for instagram and twitter to share community-defined goals from the NYCHA community members. View one of the complete posts here.

POCKET ZINE

I created a zine called “A Civic Service Designer’s 10 Unanswered Questions” to reflect on my time with the Service Design Studio. This pocket-sized tool packs a punch! I went on to engage my professors, teammates, and employers with this zine. Using this zine, I received a “George M. Meserve Award” from Northeastern University for critical engagement. Ask me for a free copy!