Co-Design Group kickoff

Kickoff the Co-Design Group to engage representatives from underserved communities to collaborate with HHS to ensure a more accessible grant experience

Summary details

Field	Value
Deliverable status	DRAFT
Link to GitHub issue	Issue 1822
Responsible parties	Risha Lee - Designer/researcher Andy Cochran - Design Sumi Thaiveettil - Product
Key sections	Overview Business value User stories Definition of done Must have Nice to have Not in scope Proposed metrics Open questions Logs Change log Implementation log

Overview

Summary

• What: Identify representatives of underserved communities and establish a group to engage them in defining and advising the direction of work for the Simpler Grants.gov initiative

• Why: Ensures that Simpler.Grants.gov HHS decision makers design with the most underserved communities in the grants ecosystem and create continuous feedback loops to ensure equitable product development. This includes framing strategic problems, roadmap development, designing solutions, and iteration.

• Who

  • The most underserved applicant individuals and groups within the grants ecosystem

  • Internal Simpler.Grants.gov stakeholders

Business value

Problem

• The current grant making system privileges certain groups above others according to access to power and resources, making grants distribution highly inaccessible to specific groups.

• The most underserved communities have not been involved in setting priorities, strategy, and roadmap for grants.gov, a project that has a north star of minimizing the burden borne by the most underserved.

• Underserved communities have not been able to lead any part of these initiatives or determine where investments ought to be made for their benefit or influence the grants.gov product roadmap.

• There is no standard research protocols and processes for obtaining participant consent that proactively mitigate potential harm to vulnerable participants

Value

• By working with underserved communities to directly involve them in project design, Simpler.Grants.gov decision makers increase the likelihood of identifying and solving the most burdensome problems and increasing grants access for Novices (a primary archetype identified through previous research).

• The Co-Design Group will be an equitable foundation upon which simpler.grants.gov is built, shifting the power structure of typical product development cycles to a community-led model of strategic engagement and partnership that includes radical participatory design.

• Building relationships with these communities will allow internal stakeholders to identify and uplift existing community designed solutions with Simpler.Grants.gov work, thereby removing the risk of duplication of effort and increasing the chance of user adoption.

• Giving opportunity to the most underserved to lead in a substantive way promises powerful transformative potential to achieve healing and lasting social justice outcomes within the civic sector. It will encourage civic actors to reframe ways of thinking, speaking, and ultimately interacting with underserved populations-moving from negative 'problem' based perceptions to positive 'asset' based perceptions

• The Co-Design Group is rooted in Design Justice Principles, which centers the experiences of underserved end users throughout the entire framing, execution, and evaluation of project planning and delivery. This acknowledges and extends the reach of already existing community designed solutions.

• By improving the experience and access for the most underserved communities, we improve the experience and access for everyone who uses the service.

• The Co-Design Group will enable Simpler.Grants.gov internal stakeholders to more effectively implement best practices in user research by identifying opportunities for research ahead of time, mitigating risk, and more quickly standing up generative and evaluative studies with a pre-screened target user panel.

• The Co-Design Group will develop research protocols and obtain participant consent to ensure that participants are protected from harm that might arise from government stakeholders obtaining potentially sensitive data.

Goals

This effort allows us to…

• Bring the most impacted applicants into partnership with grants.gov internal stakeholders to frame, plan, design, and solution grants experience

• Create continuous feedback loop between community groups already working on behalf of marginalized community and allows grants.gov internal stakeholders to contribute to their existing solutions and build with (not for)

• Increase speed of participant recruitment for studies that aim to gather insights center user needs and behaviors throughout the product development lifecycle

• Improve strategy and proactive planning for future grants.gov work by inviting co-design group participants to frame problems and contribute insights that will guide roadmap development based on the real challenges users navigate in their lives

Non-goals

• Cross-pollinating the Co-Design Group with other deliverables, such as the Collaborative code challenge

Assumptions and dependencies

• The budget for compensation needs to be approved by HHS and ready for dispersement to participants.

• Tremendous needs to be procured so that we can disperse payment to participants

User stories

• As a HHS staff member, I want to:

  • center the voices of those who are directly impacted by the outcome of the design process so that I can ensure that our solutions lead to sustainable positive outcomes

• As a Co-Design Group administrator and project maintainer, I want:

  • a streamlined process for collaborating with Co-Design Group members so that I can ensure that there is continuous feedback loop throughout strategic planning and product development

  • to ensure that the Co-Design Group includes representatives from a range of communities facing limited access so that they can reflect diverse voices and perspectives of those impacted by the outcomes

  • a longer-term view and tactical plan for how we will leverage the Co-Design Group so I can build trust with the group, set expectations, and right-size capacity needed to run the group for a defined duration of time

  • a manageable size of participants that matches the need of the project and capacity of the development team

  • ensure that participants understand how their data will be used, obtain their consent, and that I have a way of protecting and anonymizing their data

• As a grantor, I want:

  • Simpler.Grants.gov to be simple, effective, and accessible and work for all communities and individuals in the grants ecosystem so that it’s easier to attract a wide range of candidates

  • the communities I'm trying to reach to be involved in the problem defining phases, so that I can make sure my grants are accessible to those communities

• As an applicant and a member of the general public, I want:

  • Simpler Grants.gov to incorporate feedback from underserved communities, so that it's easier and more accessible for everyone to find and apply for grants

Definition of done

Following sections describe the conditions that must be met to consider this deliverable "done".

Must have

• General requirements

  • All new services have completed a 508 compliance review (if necessary)

  • Data needed for metrics is actively being captured in PROD

  • Key architectural decisions made about this deliverable are documented publicly (if relevant)

• HHS approval of the compensation budget received

• A panel of 12-24 participants have been selected, and these participants:

  • Represent underserved communities that have been determined to have unequal access to grants

  • Have completed the screening and consent process

  • Have been onboarded to our open source tools that are relevant for the Co-Design Group

  • Have signed a statement of expectations form that communicates the expectations for involvement in the Co-Design Group and describes the roles and responsibilities of cross-functional stakeholders

• Host at least one session with participant(s)

• Documentation needed for onboarding participants has been approved by HHS

• A budget proposal has been approved by the requisite HHS stakeholders, and this budget:

  • Allocates sufficient funds to compensate Co-Design Group participants for the next 12 months

  • Outlines how Co-Design Group participants will be compensated (e.g. through gift cards, honorariums, etc.)

  • Provides an anticipated payment schedule for this compensation that is communicated to participants

• Participants are managed and recruited through the selected research recruitment tool

• An SOP is written for tracking participant engagement and compensation

• A mechanism is set up to gauge participant satisfaction of co-design cohort at regular intervals throughout their tenure

• Our desired deliverable metrics are captured and displayed in a public place

Nice to have

• Co-Design Group participants can access information and resources related to the Co-Design Group in a central location, and this knowledge base:

  • Is built on top of one of our existing communication tools, e.g. wiki page or Google Drive

  • Can be accessed by members of the Co-Design Group at no cost to them

  • Can be accessed by (a subset of) members of the Simpler.Grants.gov team

• Co-Design Group participants can collaborate in a centralized communication channel, and this channel:

  • Is built on top of one of our existing communication tools, e.g. wiki page or Slack

  • Can be accessed by members of the Co-Design Group at no cost to them

  • Can be accessed by (a subset of) members of the Simpler.Grants.gov team

• A translator is present for all sessions with the Co-Design Group, when necessary

Not in scope

• We could gauge satisfaction with the onboarding experience, but we will not be able to measure participant satisfaction throughout the sessions as the DoD is just to kickoff one session.

Measurement

Metrics

• Percentage of participants who attend the first kick off session

• Number of participant engagements and compensations

• Stretch: Satisfaction of onboarding experience to Co-Design Group

• Stretch: Total number of messages in Co-Design Group communication channel

• Stretch: Total number of page views to Co-Design Group knowledge base

• Stretch: Average number of participants attending regular Co-Design Group meetings

Location for publishing metrics

Metrics will be shared on the public wiki. All metrics and public information will be anonymized to protect participants.

Open questions

N/A

Logs

Change log

Major updates to the content of this page will be added here.

Date	Update	Notes
April 25, 2024	First draft of the Co-Design Group kickoff deliverable spec drafted

Implementation log

Use this section to indicate when acceptance criteria in the "Definition of done" section have been completed, and provide notes on steps taken to satisfy this criteria when appropriate.

Date	Criteria completed	Notes