Project Description

The 10 Questions for Changemakers Project, led by Network members Danielle Allen, Jennifer Earl, and Elisabeth Soep brought the YPP Network's action agenda into conversation with platform designers in the business of engineering digitally-enabled tools, sites, apps, and other contexts intended to promote youth voice and influence in public spheres. The project's focus was on integrating insights from across the YPP Network into a clear set of design principles, supported by compelling, concrete, real-world examples. These design principles were then made available to platform makers so that they could improve their ability to engage youth with maximum impact, and to align their efforts with the values and practices of participatory politics. The group's own process was iterative and collaborative, involving Network members from a range of disciplines as well as designers, developers, educators, campaigners, and organizational leaders. The design principles were vetted with collaborators, including those who had developed custom platforms and others who carried out their civic-minded work via existing utilities like Twitter or Facebook. The project's work made a the case for participatory politics as a vital framework in the era of digital-age civics and presented the principles with exemplars, critical discussion, and strategies for implementation on the 10 Questions for Changemakers website.