01 / Cultural context mapping
A better question
starts with context.
Before choosing a solution, understand the people and relationships it will affect. Cultural context mapping makes different experiences, priorities, and assumptions visible.
What should this change make possible?
Choose a perspective to explore the questions it brings into view.
FOUR PERSPECTIVES / ONE SHARED QUESTION
01 / People & identity
Whose experience is shaping the question?
Listen to people affected by the challenge, including those who are absent from the current conversation. Look for differences in experience rather than assuming a single community view.
Who is involved? Who is missing? What are we assuming about them?
A clearer picture of who needs to participate and what needs to be understood.
02 / Culture & practice
What gives this meaning in everyday life?
Explore the values, histories, language, and habits that shape how people understand a service or technology. Ask how it fits into what people already do.
Which words, practices, and local knowledge matter here?
Design priorities grounded in how people live, communicate, and learn.
03 / Value & ownership
Who benefits, contributes, and decides?
Make the distribution of benefits and responsibilities part of the design conversation. Consider who controls contributed knowledge and how decisions are made.
Who carries the costs? Who decides how knowledge or data is used?
Shared expectations about responsibility, permission, and benefit.
04 / Relationships & environment
What else does this depend on or affect?
Look beyond the immediate users to the people, institutions, places, and living systems connected to the work. Consider consequences that may emerge over time.
What relationships sustain the work? What might the change disrupt?
Dependencies and longer-term consequences to consider before a test.
IN PRACTICE / AN ILLUSTRATIVE EXAMPLE
A digital learning program, shaped by its community.
A community organization wants to develop a learning program. Conversations with learners, educators, and knowledge holders reveal that language, access, and decisions about local knowledge all need attention before a platform is chosen.
An example of how this approach could be used.
- 01
Listen
Hear how people currently learn and share knowledge.
- 02
Map
Bring language, access, and ownership questions into one view.
- 03
Decide
Agree on the priorities for a first learning experience.
MAKE THE WORK USEFUL
What this can
produce.
- A shared problem statement
- Perspectives and assumptions to check
- Priorities for design and participation
The map is useful when it changes the question, who is involved, or what happens next.