Co-design workshop to strengthen ODC’s accessibility

As a part of its strategy to strengthen tools for sharing information about social accountability (for the Innovations for Social Accountability in Cambodia Project), Internews facilitated a Co-Design Workshop with Open Development Cambodia to improve its webpage on “Access to Public Service Information” in May.

All participants were working from home due to Covid-19, and a ‘Design Sprint’ brainstorming process was adapted for a virtual workshop, using prior virtual examples. Participants utilized Zoom, Skype and varied online design tools.

Building on prior research (including a ‘Needs Assessment of Info-Mediaries’ conducted by Internews), five members of the Open Development Cambodia (‘ODC’) team worked with Internews’ Data Journalism Specialist Eva Constantaros and web firm Thibi to re-design ODC’s ‘Public Service Delivery’ profile page, focusing on accessibility, navigation, and ease of use. These proposed changes were then modeled as an online prototype, and tested by representatives of ODC’s user base. The ODC team was pleased to see their proposed changes developed and then explored almost immediately afterwards.

In following months, Internews will work with Open Development Cambodia and external developers to ‘build out’ these changes on their web platform and fully realize these changes for more effective citizen access and use. ODC is conducting additional follow-up testing with site users.