Design Thinking Tools to Guide Project Design and Performance Improvement
Back in 2021, we produced a series of events for NASA citizen science project leaders that focused on citizen science project design, and more specifically, website design (scroll down for links to those recordings). In addition tom producing four webinars, we created a set of Design Thinking Tools to support project leaders in bringing our conversations home to their unique project. These tools draw from my own two decades of citizen science project development and management, and from the wisdom - and feedback! - of countless teachers and scientists, students and volunteers, colleagues and consultants. What I learned was that how and what 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 retains.
The Design Thinking Tools share a simple format: a statement of purpose followed by a series of questions. 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.
Here they are:
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!
I’d also love to learn from you: what resources, conversations, models, ideas, and strategies have most contributed to your project’s success?
P.S. The events in our project design series were recorded. You can check them out here: