Civic Engagement with City Bureau

As local news organizations shrink, many civic advocates fear that no one will be monitoring the day-to-day processes that make city governments run. As part of their innovative approach to closing news gaps and promoting civic engagement, Chicago’s City Bureau has developed their “Documenters” program to train citizens to observe and record public meetings. As they develop this team of citizen journalists, they are now considering the complementary question: what is the most effective way to make the work they produce available and useful to Chicagoans?

For this project, the Northwestern student team will conduct design research and prototyping to explore solutions. Students will be expected to be in close contact with City Bureau’s team, with current documenters, and with engaged citizens who want to stay informed about what’s happening at the heart of these civic processes. Students should be prepared to go out into Chicago to meet with these people face to face for interviews, observations, and prototype testing.

Faculty and Staff Leads

Joe Germuska

Chief Nerd

Joe runs Knight Lab’s technology, professional staff and student fellows. Before joining us, Joe was on the Chicago Tribune News Apps team. He is the founder of CensusReporter.org, and a proud board member of City Bureau.

Project Details

2018 Spring

Important Questions
  • Who are the people most interested in Documenters’ coverage?
  • What are those people hoping to learn from the coverage?
  • What are the most useful forms for coverage to take?
  • How can we support audiences who don’t speak the same language as the documenter?
  • Is the primary audience coming looking for answers to specific questions? Or trying to maintain a more general “eye” on City business?
  • Are there optimizations to the Documenters’ workflow/process which make the whole system function more smoothly?
Sample Milestones
  • Weeks 1-3: Get to know City Bureau representatives who can provide a general orientation. Conduct internet/library research on the general problem of - monitoring public meetings, in Chicago and elsewhere. Go on a “ride-along” with Documenters doing their job. Attend Chi Hack Night, and find other ways to meet the prospective audience for this coverage. Develop design artifacts to fully characterize the research.
  • Weeks 3-5: Generate ideas, develop prototypes, conduct tests to see how the prototypes are received.
  • Weeks 6-10: Iterate! Follow the leads developed in the first half of the class, and continue to generate and test ideas. Organize your work into a report for City Bureau.
Outcome

Students will practice human-centered design research to help City Bureau better understand how its Documenters program could be most effective. By the end of the quarter, students will produce a report for City Bureau which captures insights into user needs and a small number of possible solutions which address those needs.

Students