May 13, 2015

Town+Gown

Policy, Meet Design.2

In collaboration with Parsons Desis Lab, Public Policy Lab, AIGA/NY and NYCxDesign

This was the sixth Symposium event in Town+Gown’s ongoing exploration of Design and a follow up event to Policy, Meet Design the year before, when a “Rosetta Stone” infographic of 10 things public policy analysts should know about design and 10 things designers should know about public policy analysis was developed as part of a conversation about how City agencies could become a better client of design and collectively implement more effective design on a citywide basis.

The purpose of this event was to further explore how design-based research methodologies and techniques turn data into knowledge in a cyclical process that includes policy recommendations, implementation and evaluation by using this Rosetta Stone as a tool for cross-disciplinary conversations to help both sides reach across the policy/design divide and increase cross-disciplinary collaborations.  The first part of the conversation explored design pathways in public policy, from an academic perspective involving researchers using the various design disciplines in the criminal justice area, beginning with a service design project in 2011-2012 for NYC Department of Probation’s waiting rooms that evolved into NYC DOP’s Neighborhood Opportunity Network (NeON) program and moving forward into a series of New York Police Department’s design projects with Town+Gown in 2014-2015, in connection with its “People’s Precinct” initiative.  The second part of the conversation explored participant experiences with respect to several completed New York City agency service design projects, while the third part of the conversation explored issues likely to be encountered as NYPD embarked on a service design effort that began as part of the series of Town+Gown’s design projects for NYPD.