Google Jigsaw User in Residence: Civic Technology and Human-Centered DesignGoogle Jigsaw User in Residence: Civic Technology and Human-Centered Design

Understanding real-world civic technology needs requires perspectives from people building and using public information systems.

Civic technology teams need to understand how people find, interpret, and act on public information before deciding which problems to address. For Jigsaw's Hello World User in Residence series, the opportunity was to bring a practitioner's view of civic engagement, open data, and accessibility into early-stage discussions. The conversations were confidential, limiting what could be shared publicly.

Sharing practical insights from civic data platforms, community organizing, and public-interest software development.

I joined the Jigsaw team's User in Residence conversations and answered questions grounded in my work founding Civil Services. I drew on experience coordinating more than 400 volunteers, organizing large-scale public-data collection, and building accessible APIs. My contribution was advisory: sharing practical context about user needs and implementation constraints, not building a Jigsaw product.

Contributing firsthand civic technology experience to Jigsaw's early-stage exploration and discovery process.

The engagement gave Jigsaw's team direct access to my experience working across civic data, community organizing, and software development. I contributed perspective to discovery-oriented discussions about public information and civic participation. The conversations and any resulting internal decisions remain confidential, so I cannot attribute a specific product, feature, or measurable outcome to my involvement.