Developing tech for government agencies? Participant advisory councils can help get it right.

Less than 25% of Americans trust the federal government to “do what’s right.” Although trust in government has marginally increased since 2023, this statistic is concerning. 

Various factors eroded the public’s trust in government, and the hoops one must jump through to access government services — often called “administrative burdens” — are surely among them. 

To reduce these barriers and restore trust in government, public interest technologists must design products and services to meet the public’s needs. One way to accomplish this is through co-design — an approach that deeply involves community members and treats them as experts of their lived experiences. 

Participant advisory councils (PACs), where groups of program participants regularly meet with development teams to provide feedback on product improvements, offer an emerging way to practice co-design. Stemming from a long history of community engagement practices across fields, PACs emerged in government as an effective way to gather feedback on new products or services. However, they’re still an uncommon design method for technology projects. 

Success stories from other sectors suggest that PACs can be an efficient and human-centered way for technologists to build products that meet peoples’ needs, which can ultimately help restore trust in our institutions. This is because PACs enable teams to make decisions that lead to positive impacts while helping participants feel heard and valued. They can also save time and resources by speeding up the recruitment process for user research. 

At Nava Labs, we focus on generating policy and systems changes within the government. We saw the positive impacts of forming a PAC when we partnered with Montana’s Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children (WIC) program to prototype a recertification web portal, and — more recently, as we’ve been researching and piloting AI-enabled tools — to expand access to public benefits. 

Although our research focuses on the public sector, we believe PACs can help any technologists looking to build more human-centered products.

For longer-term projects, PACs can facilitate deeper research insights than one-off user research sessions because technologists become familiar with PAC members’ unique circumstances. Every time the PAC meets, technologists can build off the previous session instead of starting from scratch. This enables technologists to tailor their research questions accordingly, ultimately ensuring more human-centered outcomes. Meeting regularly also helps build trust between technologists and PAC members, which can encourage PAC members to share valuable insights.

A PAC in Austin, Texas, that aimed to develop solutions for combatting homelessness demonstrates how long-term engagements can build trust among members. The council consisted of people experiencing homelessness, and for the first five-to-six months, PAC members were distrustful of the system and one another. However, by the end of the 18-month process, the PAC had offered feedback on researchers’ prototypes, leading to more human-centered solutions for agencies to implement. PAC members also suggested their own solutions, which spurred additional projects. 

The researchers in Austin gathered valuable insights because they provided a space for PAC members to share their experiences and opinions. Technologists can use a similar strategy by demonstrating that they listen to PAC members’ feedback and incorporating it into technology products. Listening to PAC members can foster deeper relationships and establish participants as experts on their own experiences. All of this is especially important for those from underrepresented populations whose needs and opinions are too often overlooked by government agencies. 

In doing so, we recommend that technologists keep an open mind. Teams will likely gain more fruitful insights by letting PAC members drive the development process, even if it doesn’t go exactly as planned. Embedding in PAC members’ communities, to the extent that it’s possible, can also help better understand their experiences. 

In addition to helping technologists gain deeper research insights, meeting consistently with the same community members can save weeks of time and resources. Researchers need participant input at several points during the development cycle; often, teams recruit research participants each time. PACs also provide a consistent pool of research participants, which speeds up the data collection process since teams only need to recruit once. 

HOME-STAT, a New York City initiative to combat homelessness, achieved significant gains in a short time due to its co-design methods. The project gathered a group of people affected by homelessness, service providers, agency staff and other experts to better understand how people experiencing homelessness interact with the government. In just one year, HOME-STAT placed 2,146 people into housing. The team achieved this feat on a limited timeline because its members worked with the community to develop solutions grounded in peoples’ lived experiences, such as increasing the number of street outreach workers and expanding case management services. 

It’s important to note that PACs are not the best solution for every project. From planning to recruiting participants to scheduling and facilitating meetings, PACs require a lot of logistical forethought. Joining a PAC generally involves more time than a one-off user research session, so teams must be prepared to offer robust support to PAC members throughout the project. Before forming a PAC, teams should consider whether they have the capacity, time and budget to offer this type of support and ensure success. 

PACs typically work best for long-term projects because technologists must meet with PAC members continuously over an extended period. For this reason, PACs also best serve projects requiring regular input from a consistent group of people. Teams should also consider budget, as it’s crucial to compensate participants for their time. And finally, it’s best to designate a point person to communicate with PAC members and facilitate meetings.

For projects that fit the above criteria, PACs can contribute to more insightful and nuanced user research while saving time and resources. Ultimately, this can help technologists build products that meet the public’s unique needs. In a time when distrust of government is near an all-time high, public interest technologists can afford nothing less.