OUR MUSINGS ON DIGITAL EQUITY AS A DESIGN SPACE

In this series of individually-authored posts, we draw upon our shared interest in design to reflect on Digital Equity as a Design Space. In preparation for this series, we spent time reflecting as a cohort on definitions of design and prescriptive models of “the” design process 🡥 common in technology design. To understand how our own actual design process mapped to these prescriptive models, we each tracked our individual highs and lows throughout the project using weekly timesheets as well as written and in-studio discussions. Additionally, we reviewed and discussed empirical design research on how people actually do design 🡥 because what designers actually do differs in important ways from the idealized prescriptive models. We then considered how the insights of that research mapped to our own experience with this project. All of these steps are standard in technology design education. 

Our next move added a swerve: We then compared how we were individually and collectively conceiving of “design” against what we had learned about Digital Equity work in Washington State from those immersed in that work. 

The result is a series of individual musings that juxtapose traditional ways of conceiving technology design against the conceptions employed to showcase the Digital Equity work in Washington State. Enjoy!