Source: Design as Common Good
Ongoing Matters: Government Document Design in the Public’s Interest
by Anne H. Berry, Sarah Edmands Martin, Andre Mūrnieks
In the face of numerous global crises, including the rise of authoritarianism and targeted misinformation media campaigns, promoting information literacy, cultivating civic participation, and providing access to information is essential to the common good of communities all over the world. The repercussions of complacency and distrust of scientific expertise are being felt in real-time, even as the United States struggles to respond to the COVID-19 crisis. This paper, consequently, aims to capture design’s role as a communication conduit for the public good. Based on a current project titled Ongoing Matter: Democracy, Design, and the Mueller Report, this paper identifies strategies for increasing public engagement with and access to factually dense documents, such as government reports and records. Though focused specifically on the Mueller Report, Ongoing Matter is a case study for similar scenarios wherein information dissemination is crucial to the public interest.