Human Centered Design

Human Centered Design is a collaborative design practice used to understand the lived experience of the people closest to a specific challenge, and use their expertise to seek solutions for that challenge.  

This approach to problem solving that starts with building deep empathy for people, and the process includes learning directly from people about their lives, generating many ideas, building prototypes, and testing those ideas.

The MIL is currently testing liberatory design to center racial justice on every project.  

Critical Thinking

Critical Thinking is the intentional practice of listening really well to others - their ideas, their thoughts, their interests - as they are expressed through research, data, articles, discussion, etc...  We want to talk about these ideas, thoughts, and interests with as many other people as possible in order to gain insight and understanding. Through Critical Thinking we're curious to learn which ideas, thoughts, and interests have legs and start to rise as resonance with them builds.

Applied Research

Applied Research tests ideas that come from our critical thinking practice in the real world.  We seek to question assumptions, find new learning, and prove innovative concepts for potential scale at the systems level through investment of policy makers, elected officials, and funders.