Back in 2021, we produced a series of events for NASA citizen science project leaders focused on citizen science project design, and more specifically, website design. NASA, by formal policy, uses citizen science as a research method and holds citizen science projects to the same standards as any other research (SPD-33). Project teams are funded to produce scientific results, which as any seasoned participatory science professional will tell you, requires a high quality volunteer experience. The purpose of our series was to provide support to teams of scientists to help them be efficient and successful at these challenges.
In addition to four webinars, we created a set of Design Thinking Tools to support project leaders with project creation or project iteration. These tools drew from my own two decades of citizen science project development and management. Over the years, I’ve learned that what and how you communicate on a project website, what functionality you choose to include or not, and how you train your volunteers has a huge impact on the character and productivity of the volunteer community that a project attracts and supports. I also know that much of what I’ve learned about how to do this I’ve learned from colleagues and consultants (I was lucky to have the funding to hire a talented web development firm) and making my own mistakes and/or getting lucky with design choices!
Looking back, I can see how at the start of my citizen science career I didn’t even know what I didn’t know. I had to learn some hard lessons about how to assemble and communicate protocols, how to meet the pace and interests of volunteers and scientists, and about the unintended consequences of my design decisions.
The Design Thinking Tools are an effort to save the NASA-funded teams from some of the floundering that I did. I hope they help you think holistically about some of the most important issues related to project creation or project iteration. The format is simple: a statement of purpose followed by a series of questions. Here they are:
- Design Thinking Tool 1: Anticipated Volunteers Reflection Tool
- Design Thinking Tool 2: Project Website Communications
- Design Thinking Tool 3: Volunteer training and support
- Design Thinking Tool 4: Data and Metadata
As the tools were designed to stimulate thinking with prompting questions rather than presenting facts or advice, they are as useful today as they were in 2021.
Whether you are just starting your project development process or managing a mature and functional project, I encourage you to take a moment to review these tools. If you find something of particular value, please let me know (use that link to send me an email; please use subject line “Design thinking tools comment”. And if you find something that doesn’t make sense to you I want to hear from you about that! If there’s one thing I’ve learned for certain about project design, it’s that it evolves as quickly and continuously as language and fashion.
I’d love to learn from you – what design tools and strategies do you see coming over the horizon?
P.S. The events in our project design series were recorded. You can check them out here:
