Superbloom

Katie Wilson

Design Researcher * she/her

Katie is a researcher and writer with special interest in participatory research methods at the intersection of design and social justice. Katie leads research projects focusing on discovering and supporting user needs, and especially enjoys projects that deal with issues of surveillance, information and news access, and platform transparency. Before joining the team at Simply Secure, Katie focused on housing justice and anti-displacement research in the Bay Area. She holds a bachelor’s degree in Comparative American Studies from Oberlin College. Outside of work, she volunteers for the Parole Preparation Project and loves to tackle any kind of craft project, whether cooking an elaborate meal or sewing a new garment.

Katie Wilson

Related works

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USER: A Work In Process

Part two in a series of three blogs. Here we outline part of our research process for the Usable Software Ecosystems Research project. USER is a Sloan Foundation supported research initiative that explores how open source scientific and research software teams understand, consider, and undertake usability and design opportunities in their projects.
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Introducing USER: Usable Software Ecosystem Research

Supported by the Sloan Foundation, we introduce USER, a research initiative that explores how open source scientific and research software teams understand, consider, and undertake usability and design opportunities in their projects. As part of our active work on this project, we are openly sharing our progress along the way in a series of blog posts.
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Keeping Everyone Safe: Quick, User-oriented Problem-solving with Mapeo

This fall, we had the pleasure of working with Digital Democracy on their application, Mapeo. Mapeo is a mobile and desktop app that enables indigenous communities to map their lands, sites, and resources, as well as record and monitor environmental and legal abuses by corporations and the state. The app is used by communities around the world, and due to the sensitive nature of the data being recorded, contributing to Mapeo can be high-risk for users. Our design challenge focused on user safety: how to protect end users in the likely event that a community mapper’s phone is lost, seized, damaged, or stolen.