Overview
This guide contains initial steps for designers, researchers, and developers at the CFPB to help give the communities we design for a voice in the design and research process.
About community-centered design
Traditional design and research practices aim to understand and solve for the needs of the people we serve, but with limited input from those people. Designers, researchers, developers, and stakeholders work together to determine goals, what questions to ask, what conclusions to draw, and ultimately what solutions to build. Collectively, we have the ability to control the narrative for those we serve.
Without better input from the people impacted by our work, especially those in communities that can benefit most from our work, we risk making decisions and creating solutions that do not help them. The natural limits of our own experience may lead us to omit critical perspectives or possibly even create solutions that cause harm.
Community-centered design and research aims to empower communities by purposefully making all the people we design for collaborators in the design and research process.
About these guidelines
This guide is meant to help increase our awareness of the influence we hold in the design and research process, and to take steps to give more say to those we serve, to allow their voices to be heard. We’ve written this guide for use in the context of design, user research, and technology development projects, but we hope it may be of use to anyone involved in building solutions for many types of audiences. The ultimate goal is to infuse community-centered design principles into all our processes and practices to better ensure the products and services we build are actually useful for those who can benefit the most.
Be sure to always look for opportunities to standardize these principles as part of your everyday work. Reconsider recruitment practices, incentives, and how you interact with individuals and communities throughout the lifecycle of a project. Ask yourself, “how is my work contributing to building long-lasting relationships with the organizations, communities, and people the Bureau serves?”
This is a living document. We will continually reflect on our practices and revisit or add to these ideas as we grow, change, and learn more.
Acknowledgements
These guidelines are based upon the great work of others. Acknowledgments are in order:
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Ben Peterson and Julie Strothman’s presentation from their work with GSA’s 18F organization is the primary source of information and inspiration for these guidelines. 18F was disbanded in 2025, but the quality of their work lives on. Other important sources of information include: