Co-designing an Interactive Story Mapping System for Housing Justice Action

Society for Social Studies of Science (4S) Conference Presentation 2021

I am excited to present the first issue of the Sporadic Design Research newsletter - you never know when it will land in your inbox (or not) but what do you know? Here it is!

On Thursday, October 7, 1:20 to 2:50 PM EST (10:20 - 11:50 am PST), I will be virtually presenting at the 2021 Society for Social Studies of Science (4S) Techniques, Technologies, and Relationships in Mapping Evictions Panel. I will be discussing the study described below and design online at: covid19.antievictionmap.com.

Co-designing an Interactive Story Mapping System for Housing Justice Action
In this study, we present the design of an interactive story mapping system for documenting tenant narratives and eviction information. Since 2013, the Anti-Eviction Mapping Project has conducted oral history interviews with home insecure residents primarily in New York City, Los Angeles, and the San Francisco Bay Area to amplify tenant voices by collecting and digitally mapping narratives of displacement and resistance. However, due to a lack of resources, digital infrastructure, and funding to support in-kind labor, community-led practices such as these move slowly; under-resourced volunteers struggle to collect, counter-map, and disseminate housing justice information at a pace that can keep up with the rapidly accelerating rates of eviction and harm inflicted on marginalized communities, especially during times of crisis. Therefore, to offer support to other social movement organizations in launching digital counter-maps under severe time and resource constraints, we present the design of our free and open-source system built in response to the COVID-19 housing crisis. Here we present key insights and design considerations from two iterations of our system implemented over 6 months and 18 months respectively. By practicing community-led design, we found that what aesthetically resonated with tenants and community organizers was an interface design that was antithetical to traditional colonial maps. We describe how we designed the user interface and experience to support housing justice movements. By sharing these design insights, we aim to provide other community-based organizations, cartographers, and researchers with quick-hand guidance on designing interactive multimedia information systems and geospatial data visualizations to support social movements.

I hope to see you there if you are in attendance and if not, until next time. Who knows when you might receive the next sporadic design research update?