Civic Tech in Action

UMSI Students Help Shape Community-Centered Solutions

Scott TenBrink, Kelly Kowatch, and Rhea Acharya share how CUTGroup prepares students to collaborate with communities and improve civic technology through participatory design.

From searching for library books to applying for jobs or accessing city services, digital tools are now a routine part of everyday life. But, the systems people rely on are not always easy to navigate or equitably designed. Language barriers, design flaws, or assumptions about digital literacy can create challenges that make it difficult for some community members to participate in public life.

For nearly a century, the University of Michigan School of Information (UMSI) has centered engaged learning as a defining part of its mission. In 2019, that commitment took a new form with the launch of the Civic User Testing Group (CUTGroup), a co-curricular initiative developed by the UMSI Engaged Learning Office. Adapted from a model first created in Chicago, CUTGroup connects students with local governments, nonprofits, and residents to evaluate and improve civic technology using participatory design methods and user-centered research.

Since its inception, CUTGroup has been supported by a dedicated team of UMSI faculty and staff. Rhea Acharya, Lecturer at UMSI, currently runs the program. Rhea began her journey as a CUTGroup student and now plays a key role in guiding participants through projects grounded in collaboration and mutual learning. The motto of CUTgroup is “If it doesn’t work for the user, it doesn’t work.”  In CUTGroup, students are not positioned as outside experts but as co-creators. They partner with community members to test digital tools, gather user feedback, and surface insights that improve accessibility and usability. Projects aren’t limited to digital interfaces; students have also tackled service design challenges like improving wayfinding at the VA hospital and redesigning eviction court forms to support better access to justice. Through this work, students gain valuable experience in ethical engagement, human-centered design, and cultural responsiveness. These are skills that are essential in today’s civic and technological environments. 

“The goal with CUTGroup is to help students build confidence as researchers while staying grounded in the realities of public service. We navigate tight timelines, complex client needs, and limited access to users; all while learning to write research protocols that are thoughtful, ethical, and adaptable. I encourage students to show up with humility and curiosity because the people using these systems are the real experts,” says Acharya.

What makes CUTGroup distinct is its foundation in partnership and shared learning. Students do not arrive with all the answers. They show up with curiosity, research skills, and a willingness to listen. They are trained in usability testing and ethical engagement, and they learn just as much from the process of working with community members who use these tools every day. Together, they surface insights that make public technology more inclusive, responsive, and reflective of the people it serves.

In a recent project with the Ann Arbor Parks Department, CUTgroup students worked with residents to test a park finder app. The app was intended to make it easier for residents to find a park to match their plans by filtering for bathrooms, parking, trails, playgrounds, etc. Through interviews with residents, students discovered that most users were not planning ahead for park visits, and wanted to search parks on their phone while out of the house, while the app was designed for a laptop screen. The project revealed the value of understanding the context of people's information needs, and not just their goals.

CUTgroup students worked with the City of Dearborn to test the interface of a check-in kiosk in the lobby of the Dearborn Administrative Center. The user tests with residents revealed that they were overwhelmed with the number of options, the text was difficult for some to read, and that they generally wanted help from a real human, not a machine. These discoveries led to design changes to both the kiosk interface and the design of the service counter space, both of which were supported by additional UMSI student projects.

Since its launch, CUTGroup has supported nearly 40 projects across Michigan. These collaborations have strengthened public tools, sparked new community partnerships, and helped students build confidence in applying what they have learned to complex, real-world problems. The experience prepares students not just for careers in UX or information design but for roles where listening, collaboration, and equity are central. Students are also exposed to a more realistic timeline for usability research, as each CUTgroup session is only 4-5 weeks long. In this brief period, students need to design a testing protocol, execute the user tests, analyze the results, and present their findings to the client.

CUTgroup has also been a boon for the local government clients. Government staff aim to provide helpful tools and information to residents, and they are often aware that the tools are not working for residents, but they don’t have the time, resources, and skill set to dig in and understand why. In many cases, recommendations from CUTgroup reports are implemented within a month of the student presentation. In some cases, the case is so compelling that clients have started editing their website during the student presentation. And at a broader scope, working with CUTgroup students exposes government staff to the value of collecting resident feedback and some simple tactics for doing so.

The CUTgroup continues to expand its reach by partnering with new local communities, with plans to identify new local civic organizations for this fall. Additionally, ideas to apply other evaluation methods beyond user testing is a goal for the future, which would increase the opportunities of how civic partners could interact with the program, in addition to giving a broader range of skill development opportunities to students.

For UMSI, CUTGroup is part of a broader mission to demonstrate how information can be used to empower people and improve public life. It reflects a belief that technology should be shaped by the people it serves and that higher education has a responsibility to support that work.

By showing up with humility, building trust, and sharing tools, students help foster small but meaningful changes. These changes ripple outward and show what is possible when people and institutions work together to meet community needs.