Using navigation to reframe what's possible

Transcript (and see slides)

Hi, I’m Anita. Welcome to my talk, using navigation to reframe what's possible. I work for the City and County of San Francisco, on the Digital Services team.

Today I will throw out there, this idea of using navigation to reframe what’s possible.

With help from our favorite Disney navigator! I thought a Moana theme was cool for this talk, since this year’s IA Conference was in Orlando. And I did spend a few days after the conference at Disney World. But now it’s gonna be weird if I mention it at any other conference!

So I have a confession to make. I have a hard time explaining to people what information architecture is. I'm pretty sure that's not unusual in this crowd, even if it still makes me feel like I’m a bad IA.

Usually I end up saying something like “Information architecture is working on stuff like website navigation.” That's certainly not all there is, not in the least!

But it's often the most visible sign of what we do. It’s so easy to see through the navigation, that there’s categorizing, labeling, sorting, and sense making going on. Our users think, “Oh this is what I can do here.” They don’t really question it, it’s just the way it is.

Of course, for those who actually have to create this navigation - and more - we know there is a lot more to it than that.

Creating navigation is creating a map. It gives us an idea of what the territory is, or at least what we want it to represent.

There’s the mental model of being able to move around in a space represented by the map. Whether that space is physical or figurative, actually doesn’t matter too much.

All of this was on my mind when I started work at the Mayor’s Office of Housing and Community Development, or MOHCD. MOHCD makes available below market rate housing to San Francisco residents who may not otherwise afford it.

And that’s a lot of people.

My job was to make it easier for people to apply for that housing. A huge part of that was to show what people could do at the department or find on the website. That of course, involves navigation.

Here’s what I started with. Your typical government website navigation, that’s powered by the org chart. Language that is department focused.

You see, this is why I love working in government. I may not know what I’m doing, but whatever I do will be 1000 times better than what currently exists. It really is a target rich environment.

We had 2 goals for the public when redesigning the website:

Show people what services we provide to them
Show the public what the department is doing about affordable housing

I ended up doing pretty much that with our communications team.

Rent, Own, Services - the major services we provide to the public fall under those categories.

Honestly I never really liked the label Vision & Impact, but there it is. Here is what the department has done and is doing about affordable housing.

It’s no secret that government services often needs an image overhaul, so it’s a good thing that we’re sharing and prioritizing our vision and our impact. Telling the world what we do and what we provide. Putting it out there.

But then I got to thinking…is this all? Is this all government website navigation can do? Just put it out there to the public as messaging?

But I mean, we don’t really have much to go off of around us.

The navigation of our most popular websites revolve around what the corporation wants us to do. Engage more, engage more, buy more. Etsy’s navigation of course is amazing. But even with this amazing navigation, this is all there is to do - buy stuff!

Even when we break out into the realm of personal sites, it’s all one-way needs. Here’s what I want my site visitor to see. This is what they can expect from me, and that’s it.

That’s all I have, folks!

For most websites, that’s probably okay.

But I think we can expect more from, and do more with, government. It’s different, especially in this day and age.

To see all the possibilities, it’s a good idea to step way back, see the big picture, and go a bit meta.

If there’s anything that San Franciscans have strong opinions about, it’s affordable housing. Can we do something with that other than yell at our neighbors on NextDoor?

Can we harness that energy toward making change instead?

And can we have the community lead the charge?

Navigation is often a finished map. I mean, this map looks finished, although it’s the first map of the Americas, drawn by Sebastian Munster. We know now that this version needed a few more iterations.

But even on this map or any website navigation, we know where the boundaries are - whatever the website contains right now, or what our organization offers.

If your navigation claims to have something that you don’t offer, we consider that bad usability.

But what if that map was unfinished?

What if there was room for more exploration? Not for the user, but for us, the creators.

But humans have been explorers for our entire history. Even if we didn’t know exactly what our destination was…

…We logged where we’d been, and figured out which direction we were going to go next.

How might we be navigators of new realms together, and not just mapmakers of existing lands? How might we design navigation to make this exploration possible for all of us?

Luckily, at MOHCD there is some movement to co-create what affordable housing might look like in the city of San Francisco. There’s a long way to go, and we’re just starting out, with “community forums” (cough focus groups) for the public to give us input about housing-related issues.

But of course I ran with what true co-creation might look like, and how it might manifest on the website navigation. At least in my head.

And with navigation metaphors!

The exact language you use for that story then, is a huge part of that recruitment.

Social scientist Dr. Tiffany Manuel helps build inclusive communities. She points out you need three things in your messaging. Specifically this is around affordable housing, but it really could be anything politically fraught that requires a lot of public will.

You need trust, you need belonging, and you need them to have a stake.

You need all 3 for people to start listening. You have to implicate them in the solution as well as the problem. We have to work on it together as one.

And definitely do not ever call it a crisis!

Fear automatically turns on people’s lizard brains and the default reaction is to protect what you already have, in your tiny little bubble.

We want the opposite of that - we want openness and safety, so we can be adventurous, break out of those bubbles, and explore new possibilities instead.

Those possibilities start with the language that you use.

Going down the rabbit hole happens all the time in government, and it is glorious. Or at least I think it’s glorious, because like Marie Kondo, I love mess and complexity.

This is what I put together as the user journey when an applicant comes into our program. These are the steps it takes to buy an apartment in our affordable housing program. This is what I got from talking with the staff.

At least we have visibility into how people are moving through the process, but one huge question is….

…How do they get in here in the first place? It was always a fun exercise asking the applicants themselves about how they heard about the program. There are so many different answers, in places we never expected.

How might we design that real world context better?

You see, MOHCD officially funds these nonprofits to educate the public about affordable housing.

But there are other organizations that help the public too, that are more under the radar.

They hold housing clinics, they help people apply for housing, they educate people about housing issues in elections. It’s a whole ecosystem built around what the department is doing.

We can’t design our services well until we know how people move around this entire ecosystem.

Another question is where could they go after the end of our service journey for them.

Right now we just have them keep giving us paperwork, as well as more directions if they want to sell. Otherwise just keep living life as if we don’t exist!

But what if we created a space where they could participate in this wider co-design of what affordable housing could look like? That would be treating them more than a mere consumer.

But what about the big picture? What do I want housing in San Francisco to look like? That’s a really big question.

The answer is, I don’t know what housing in San Francisco should look like, because I’m just one resident. It shouldn’t be about me and my vision for the world.

What I want is for the community to come together in healthy, productive ways to build a city that is designed by the people who live here, who work here, and who visit.

Instead of being just a provider, I envision MOHCD as a conductor, directing the public, the providers, the helpers, the policymakers.

I picture MOHCD creating the space where that conversation and design can happen. That’s how I envision our destination.

If you ask anyone working in government, what is the biggest barrier to getting anything done, they will mostly likely yell “Procurement!!!”

Hiring people in government is a huge pain. There is a hard limit to what we can do just given the lack of staff we have.

So no social media campaigns or online forums for us right now, because moderating online discussions around affordable housing in San Francisco was something we could not spare someone to do full-time. We’d probably need multiple full-time people, and it would never be enough.

But what we can do right now, is change up what we already know how to do. We’re already holding community meetings, so we have staff who know how to put one on and handle a crowd.

So instead of just taking “public comment” where people talk at each other, why not make the meeting interactive and get people up and talking with each other? Workshops, brainstorming exercises, etc.

That would be someplace to start.

For San Francisco affordable housing, a huge part of what we can do when highly depends on political goodwill, internal and otherwise. Because we are a “Mayor’s Office,” we can’t do whatever the heck we want! We also can’t get involved in politics or elections, at all. There's a reason why I didn't specify any organizations in our housing ecosystem beyond the official ones. Can't show favoritism!

So we have to strategize between all these stakeholders, especially the mayor.

At the same time, how can we plan a way for the entire community to help design their own city?

When a new development opens, can we use that momentum to bring attention to some of that co-design work?

A lot of moving parts! But I’m excited to see what happens next.

All this may seem pretty exciting, and scary at first. We don’t necessarily know where we’re going to end up when we navigate to somewhere we’ve never been. We just know the general direction of we’re going.

But navigation isn’t about working with what’s directly in front of us right now. It’s learning about what came before us, what others have learned in the past. Treasure troves of experience and context to help shape our work, and how we can architect the new information we have.

Let’s use that trust and knowledge to guide our way.

So let’s think bigger with navigation, websites and otherwise. Let’s design and carry out a map we can only imagine if we work together.

So, to reframe what’s possible…

Recruit your fellow travelers. Tell the right story.
Study the landscape
Visualize your destination
Take stock of your supplies
Chart your course

...And question your own idea of who an expert is.

Because if we go together, there’s just no telling how far we’ll go.