The First Fifty Years of Civic Design
Summary
Civic design is a young field with old roots – and we forget those roots at our own peril. This talk will be a narrative survey, starting with activists challenging the design of public spaces in the 60s, and will trace a fifty year arc from those roots to the language of accessibility we use today so often in the public sector. We'll cover organizations, private and public, that have shaped the field, and end suggesting what we owe ourselves for the next fifty years. A reference guide for early careers, and a deeper contextualization for someone later in their career.
Key Insights
-
•
Sid Harrell frames civic tech as a 50-year project, with the first 10 years laying groundwork for long-term institutional change.
-
•
Accessibility activism in the 1960s, led by Ed Roberts and the Rolling Quads at Berkeley, emphasized radical self-determination, not mere standardization.
-
•
Physical accessibility efforts like curb cuts in Berkeley were the result of direct community action, not government benevolence.
-
•
The Rehabilitation Act of 1973 and the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 stemmed from these decades-long disability rights movements.
-
•
Digital accessibility requirements (like Section 508) emerged as extensions of earlier physical accessibility laws.
-
•
Sherry Arnstein’s 1969 Ladder of Citizen Participation highlights that participation without redistribution of power is ineffective.
-
•
William White's research on public parks introduced simple, direct observation to understand public space use and user agency.
-
•
Organizations like the Center for Urban Pedagogy use design to increase community understanding and empowerment at a legal and municipal level.
-
•
Government labs like Denmark’s Mind Lab and Finland’s Helsinki Design Lab pioneered collaborative, stakeholder-driven public service design.
-
•
Current civic design practitioners risk repeating past mistakes unless they trace and honor the field’s deep roots in activism, self-determination, and power dynamics.
Notable Quotes
"This project is actually 10 years in to a 50 year project."
"Independence did not just mean performing duties without assistance. It meant a radical self-determination."
"It was not some benevolent church group or a member of a Town Council that carved out these curb Cuts. They were due to deliberate actions and painstaking labor of members in the community."
"Participation without the redistribution of power is an empty and frustrating process for the powerless."
"People always move the chair slightly when they sit down for that small exercising of control or agency."
"We come to these spaces not to escape but to partake of them."
"Our users are all around us when we work in the civic and public sector."
"When we talk about accessibility, we’re talking about language that has roots in a fierce and radical self-determination."
"Participation or user research draws from ideas rooted in agency and control, not just optimizing our work product."
"We can damage relationships or apply tactics appropriate for protest environments when co-creation was necessary."
Or choose a question:
More Videos
"Building ecosystems of interconnected tools that work seamlessly is crucial for modern, fast-moving organizations."
Kate Towsey Basel Fakhoury Oren Friedman Graham GardnerParticipant Recruitment and Management Tools
March 12, 2026
"Documentation is important for liability and useful for patient handoffs, so notes must be concise yet detailed."
Jennifer KongJourneying toward AI-assisted documentation in healthcare
June 5, 2024
"Content is created all over and inconsistently; leadership needs to see content as the fuel driving the experience."
Kevin M. HoffmanTheme 2: Enterprise Team Journey
June 3, 2019
"Investment is attention: If the business funds you, it means they believe in what you do."
Amy MarquezINVEST: Discussion
June 15, 2018
"I see designers fall back on being the defender of the user like a union boss, but that’s not your only responsibility."
Gretchen AndersonScaling the Human Center
June 8, 2017
"We can't just focus on the next deadline; we have to think about how the products and services we build impact the world."
April ReaganLook, Think, Act: The Futures-Smart Design Organization
October 1, 2021
"My superpower is to connect the dots between people, places, ideas, and opportunities."
Dante GuintuHow to Crush the Talent Crunch
September 8, 2022
"Leave some space for creativity in your design system so designers can innovate without breaking consistency."
Jaime CreixemsBest Practices when Creating and Maintaining a Design System
June 7, 2023
"Balsamiq is more a communication tool, intentionally limiting high polish so you focus on sharing ideas and getting feedback."
Billy CarlsonPrinciples of Team Wireframing
October 2, 2023
