The document discusses human-centered design and policymaking. It explores how ideas become policy and how justice can be designed. The author argues that policymaking is an existential act of designing the future. When creating policy, the focus should be on intentional decision making, changing situations to affirm human dignity, and making people's needs knowable. The document then discusses a case study of using human-centered design to address disparities for young black men in Seattle. It involved career exploration and mentoring through immersive company visits and job workshops. The outcomes included increased diversity, income, and positive feedback from participants.

1. Human Centered
Design & Policy
@joelfariss
Applied Research & Design Strategy
Mayor’s Office of Policy & Innovation

2. How do ideas become policy?

3. How do ideas become policy?

4. I’m not going to answer
the question of how.

5. What I’m really interested in
is the physiology of ideas.

9. Centipede ideas
vs
caterpillar ideas.

10. Justice?

11. "Justice in itself does not
exist, but it is something we
demand and something that
is demanded of us.”

12. “Justice is what we call for
and something that calls on
us, something we solicit, and
something by which we are
solicited.”

13. When you create policy, you
are doing very existential
work.

14. The act of creating new
policy is an act of describing
what the future will be like.

15. "Designers [...] are forever
bound to treat as real that
which exists only in an
imagined future..."

16. "Designers are, by their very
nature, emissaries of that
which faces outward,
propagators seeding the
future."

17. How do ideas become law?

18. How is justice designed?

19. Let’s define design.

20. Intentional decision making.

21. “The term ‘design’ broadly
embraces the whole orbit of
man-made, visible
surroundings, from simple
everyday goods to the
complex pattern of a whole
town”

22. “Design is devising courses
of action aimed at changing
existing situations into
preferred ones.”

23. “Design is a conscious and
intuitive effort to impose
meaningful order.”

24. “Design is to make things
knowable.”

25. Human Centered Design?

26. “Human centered design is
fundamentally an affirmation
of human dignity…”

27. “…It is an ongoing search for
what can be done to support
and strengthen the dignity of
human beings…”

28. “…as they act out their lives
in varied social, economic,
political, and cultural
circumstances.”

29. “…as they act out their lives
in varied social, economic,
political, and cultural
circumstances.”

30. How is justice designed?

31. Making intentional decisions
that affirm human dignity.

32. Changing existing situations
into ones that affirm human
dignity.

33. Imposing a meaningful order
that affirms human dignity.

34. Make the things that affirm
human dignity knowable.

35. Human
Centered
Design

36. Hear
Create
Deliver

37. Fundamental to this work is
empathy.
#hear

38. Listening to the stories of real
people, discerning their
needs, barriers, and values.
#hear

39. Ethnographic portraiture.
#hear

40. “Portraiture seeks to unveil
the universal truths and
resonant stories that lie in the
specifics and complexity of
everyday life.”
#hear

41. Move from stories to
strategies and from
inspiration to ideas.
#create

42. Key activities in creating –
synthesis, brainstorming,
prototyping, and feedback.
#create

43. Moving your ideas toward
implementation.
#deliver

44. Start with low-investment and
low-cost ways of trying out
your idea.
#deliver

45. Iterative process of tracking
indicators and evaluating
outcomes.
#deliver

46. Case Study

47. Addressing disparities for
young black men in Seattle.

48. In our conversations with
young black men, we
discovered that hope was a
defining trait of those who
had changed the course of
their life.

49. “Is hope a privilege reserved
only for the affluent?”

50. Hope:
The vision for a bright future,
and the belief that future is
attainable.

51. Hope:
The vision for a bright future,
and the belief that future is
attainable.

52. Hope:
The vision for a bright future,
and the belief that future is
attainable.

53. What if every 18 – 24 year old
black male in Seattle had a
vision for a bright future, and
the belief that future was
attainable?

54. What if every 18 – 24 year old
black male in Seattle had a
vision for a bright future, and
the belief that future was
attainable?

55. Vision is about exposure.

56. Belief is about mindset.

57. Both are relational.

58. “We want to catalyze vision
and belief by operationalizing
social capital in the tech
sector.”

59. Career Exploration
and Mentoring.
Experientially rooted,
relationally focused,
job mentoring.

60. Experientially rooted.

61. Five immersive excursions to
local technology companies.

62. Relationally focused.

63. Fostering relationships
between young men, peers,
mentors, working
professionals, and affinity
groups.

64. Job mentoring.

65. Five weekly mentor-led
workshops to learn what to do
with the business card they
were just handed.

66. Outcomes.

67. If we can catalyze vision and
belief, we can enable young
men to take on life’s
opportunities.

68. Increase diversity in the
technology sector.

69. Increase income and
economic mobility.

70. Reduce racial wage inequality.

71. Expose employers to new
talent market.

72. We partnered with Microsoft.

73. Relationships.

74. Exposure.

75. “My time with the Microsoft
career exploration was one of
the most beneficial
experiences that I've ever
experienced. So thank you for
EVERYTHING, I truly learned A
LOT and had an amazing time.”

76. From 30% to 100%

77. Small n, now we’re looking to
do a larger pilot.

78. joelfariss.com/seattleu

79. Questions?