Blog Post
Co-Designing Technology for Human-Centered Public Services
Background In the Spring of 2025, our Ridiculously Hopeful Futures (RHF) project invited community members and public benefits administrators across…
Community of Practice
Bringing together Ridiculously Hopeful Futurists who believe in a future where government has fully embraced co-design and where lived experience directly shapes policies, programs, and services.
Imagine the Future of Government Services in California
Ridiculously Hopeful Futures: a bold, slightly wild, and very optimistic project to transform how government social safety net programs are designed.
Imagine a future where consulting the people who need government support is routine — where their voices shape policies, programs, and services. By listening to customers, we can create better experiences and outcomes for everyone.
The Challenge We’re Tackling
Government agencies are hesitant to co-design with their customers because:
- They may not yet fully see the benefits of involving customers.
- There are real and perceived legal and administrative barriers to customer research.
- Customer research is viewed as time-consuming and resource-intensive.
Celebrating Impact Awards
In this scenario, we transported participants into a future where public service is celebrated.
Our Ridiculously Hopeful Futures are not just about emerging technologies; they are about honoring public servants, policymakers and other service providers who meaningfully incorporate lived experience (or, living expertise) into program and policy decisions.
Co-Designing Awards
While these awards were fictional, they were based on input we collected during our co-design process, and designed to be broad enough that they could represent the diverse participants at each workshop. Award winners were not notified ahead of time, which added to the joyful element of surprise and recognition for their work that’s seeding a more hopeful future today.
Background
Stories That We Tell
“We live into the futures we imagine.” Virginia Hamilton, a longtime public servant turned public sector innovation catalyst, reflects on how our visions shape reality and calls for a new narrative in our Ridiculously Hopeful Futures project. Imagine a future where the government works for everyone, public servants are celebrated, and policies are co-designed with the people impacted by them. Through storytelling, technology, and collaboration, we can build a more hopeful, human-centered future. Join us in imagining a future that we all deserve.”
Participatory Experiential Futures
“Step into the future with us! Here, Hillary Carey, Ph.D, from Just Visions dives into the topic of Participatory Experiential Futures for our Ridiculously Hopeful Futures project, inviting people to explore immersive, full-scale visions of what a human-centered government could be through scenes, stories, and artifacts. What would you change? Whether it’s a workshop or a quick brainstorm, everyone has a role in shaping tomorrow.”
Our Partners
APPROACH
Experiential Futures Workshops
We hosted a series of 6 workshops across California with: state and local leaders; advocates; customer-facing staff; and community leaders.
Workshop Locations:
- Visalia
- Long Beach
- Concord
- Riverside
- Sacramento
- Virtual
Workshops
Recent News
“On PXF Futures,” by Hillary Carey, Ph.D
In this article, Hillary Carey explores how Experiential Futures—immersive ways to help people imagine possible worlds—can be made more accessible. Drawing on Stuart Candy’s framework, she highlights how scaling down from large installations to small, playful prompts allows anyone to engage with future thinking. The piece invites readers to consider how even simple, low-cost experiences can spark powerful conversations about what’s next.
Newsletters
What is Experiential Futures?
Experiential Futures is a method that brings potential futures to life through immersive, tangible, and emotional experiences.
Instead of merely talking about what could happen, we build spaces where people can step into the future. Participants engage with scenarios using storytelling, role-play, artifacts, and other sensory elements. This approach helps people imagine, feel, and understand what different futures might be like, fostering deeper insights and inspiring bold ideas for change. By experiencing these possible futures firsthand, participants can better envision practical steps toward more customer-centered government services.
Inspirations For This Work
Human-Centered Design
“’We often require our customers to prove their poverty or to prove that they’re eligible for these services. And we already have the data. We have everything we need in order to do that, and in many cases, we just continue to ask them over and over and over again,’ McLoughlin said. ‘We need to culturally change that and make the benefits that they are eligible for and should be receiving accessible to them as quickly as we can.’” – Future of government benefits delivery is ‘human-centered,’ say researchers, officials (Statescoop)
- What is Co-design? – KA McKercher
- The state of human-centered design – Civilla
Futures
“If we have the ability to create stories around these preferable visions of futures, do we then have some sense of agency and ownership over what the future becomes?” – Radha Mistry, Foresight Practitioner, 2024
- Polycrisis, conformity, and future sight – Apolitical
- Co-experiential futuring: Where speculative design and arts meet futures studies
- The Power of Rigorous Futures – IDEO
- Civic Future Fiction – Open Democracy and Digital Technologies
- Deem Journal – Introduction to Future Feelings with Radha Mistry
- Futures Happening
Emerging Technology
- Centering Workers in AI Policy – JFF
- “Civic data overload” – What AI Can’t Do for Democracy
- IDEO – The Case Against AI-Generated Users
- Gary Bolles – Next, AI Is Not Your Employee, Your Co-Worker, or Your Future Workforce
- Bloomberg – How artificial intelligence can increase trust in cities
Ready to Shape the Future?
Stay Informed! Follow along as we build a more inclusive, responsive, and visionary approach to government services.
Let’s design a future where government truly listens.