Human-Centered Design is widely acknowledged for its limitations in inclusivity, particularly in understanding the diverse perspectives, thought processes, and design inspirations of marginalized communities. Through a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts, Catapult Design partnered with Indigenous Community Collaborative, Brian Skeet Design LLC, and CahokiaPHX to elevate Indigenous design by starting to re-write the HCD narrative. Through extensive research and engagement with Indigenous creatives and social entrepreneurs from urban and reservation-based communities, a profound understanding of what Indigenizing truly entails emerged, informed by personal lived experiences and membership in organizations like CahokiaPHX social tech and artspace.

Indigenous people who participated in our research reflected that Indigenizing is not a 'new' way to see the world, but rather something that they have always been doing. Indigenous communities have long had their own ways of knowing, being, and doing, which have been developed over centuries of living in close relationships with the land and each other. By amplifying the voices of Indigenous creatives and social entrepreneurs from urban and reservation-based communities who actively participated in our research, we gained a profound understanding of what Indigenizing means to them, drawing from their personal lived experiences and their roles within the CahokiaPHX community.

This collective effort led to the development of the Indigenizing Design Framework, which includes three key components that support the teaching and learning of the process of Indigenizing:

- Indigenizing Markers — Values that define Indigenizing and indicators that identify if Indigenizing has happened in a space.

- Ecosystem of Indigenizing — Visualization of the Markers and their relationships within a particular context.

- Indigenizing Curriculum — Lesson plans and activities to learn how to apply the Markers in practice.

This Framework offers Indigenous practitioners a structured approach to apply Indigenizing to Westernized disciplines such as HCD. Simultaneously, it provides Non-Indigenous communities with a framework for respectful collaboration with Indigenous practitioners.

In our collaborative efforts to re-write the HCD narrative, our community-led approach encompassed three key phases:1. The Understand Phase defined the project scope; community collaboration was nurtured and focus group workshops were conducted to establish a comprehensive understanding of the concept of Indigenizing and its practical implications. 2. The Implement Phase involved co-designing the Indigenizing Markers, Ecosystem of Indigenizing, and the Indigenizing Curriculum, to then rigorously test it with additional creatives, designers, and entrepreneurs within the Cahokia ecosystem. 3. The Generational Impact Phase is on-going and is focused on sharing and refining the Framework, driven by insights from applying it in diverse contexts with Indigenous students, professionals, and the broader design community.

By centering Indigenous perspectives and rethinking the traditional design processes, we hope to challenge traditional HCD processes by reorienting power away from designers as interpreters, and towards Indigenous communities as arbiters of their contexts and experiences. Indigenous people see knowledge as constantly evolving, not static. By designing solutions that consider the communities' immediate needs and experiences, designers can create positive impacts that endure beyond the immediate context of the work and promote both ecological and cultural stewardship of our shared lands.

SETTING THE CONTEXT:The process of Indigenizing Design begins with defining and sharing what Indigenizing means and creating a language around it that is accessible and inclusive. The term 'Indigenizing' integrates Indigenous perspectives, values, and worldviews into Western contexts, acknowledging and honoring diverse Indigenous languages, cultures, and ways of knowing.

For this project, we sought to define a Framework that would Indigenize the Human-Centered Design (HCD) process. HCD is a problem-solving process that involves understanding the lived experiences and contexts of people and communities to inform decisions about policies, processes, and services that impact their lives. The process requires working directly with people in all steps to solve complex challenges and prioritize ideas relevant to their specific contexts. However in recent years, HCD has been criticized for reinforcing power structures–even if the process seeks to integrate community voices—decisions are still made by the same incumbent gatekeepers. Because of this, decision-making is often in the hands of designers, rather than the community itself, which can perpetuate power imbalances and undermine the cultural values and practices of Indigenous peoples.

'Design' as an industry and vocation is rooted in Western epistemologies and approaches that may not be appropriate or effective for Indigenous contexts. As we define Indigenizing Design, we need to recognize that it is a complex term and should be used with care. Traditionally, for designers and creatives to be legitimized, they are forced into an education system that does not value or see Indigenous Design as anything other than primitive or forgotten. These attitudes can carry over into the workforce and design academia. Often, Indigenous values, culture, and teachings are watered down which leads to a loss of self-identity; however, Indigenous Design is just as impactful as Western approaches to design.

COMMUNITY MEMBERS: Over the course of a year, we engaged in conversations with over 90 Indigenous community members of the CahokiaPHX community in Phoenix, AZ to co-create the Indigenizing Design Framework. This local intertribal community comprised of Indigenous creatives, designers, and social entrepreneurs from 11 tribal nations, belonging to both urban and reservation-based communities. They included: - UnContained Project Artists - Seven Indigenous artists from a program designed and employed by CahokiaPHX to empower muralists to Indigenize Downtown Phoenix.- CahokiaPHX Decision Makers - Nine Indigenous and Non-Indigenous decision-makers of the CahokiaPHX space - Pop-up Market Vendors & Visitors - More than seventy Indigenous arts and crafts vendors, and community visitors engaged in CahokiaPHX Pop-up Market events.

RESEARCH GOALS:
Inspired by Wanda Dalla Costa's Indigenous Peacekeeping Framework, we identified the following research goals: 1. Language of Indigenizing - Identifying the community's language and values in defining Indigenizing.2. Practice of Indigenizing - Understanding how Indigenizing is practiced, challenges faced, and envisioned improvements.3. Cultural Identities of the Community - Exploring individual tribal heritages, cultural identities, and their influence on the community's definition and relationship with Indigenizing.

CO-DESIGN ROLES:
In order to develop the Indigenizing Design Framework, we first needed to Indigenize our own design process. This transformed Catapult's own community-led HCD approach, emphasizing changes in roles, the importance of community-led processes, and the use of facilitation as an empowering tool. In this particular collaboration, we pushed the boundaries of the designer's role as a facilitator in co-design projects; the role of the external designer moved to the other end of the spectrum. This mindset shift established an equal relationship between the external designers and the community.

Catapult Design's team of Non-Indigenous designers was openly recognized as external to the Indigenous community, serving as facilitators and guides using our expertise to identify the methods, structures, and frameworks that best supported the Indigenous community. Catapult's contributions included: - Establishing structures and scoping methods in collaboration with CahokiaPHX to define the project's goals, desired outcomes, and specific tasks.- Creating a well-structured framework for workshop activities and agendas, tailored to CahokiaPHX's context and aligned with the primary research objectives.- Providing support, rather than direct facilitation, to CahokiaPHX during focus group sessions.- Taking the lead in framing and overseeing a research synthesis structure that emphasized community-driven decision-making, - Defining the approach for documenting this collaborative project, co-developing the documentation materials together with CahokiaPHX.

The transition to a community-led process met our goal of redefining the traditional design dynamic. With the CahokiaPHX project team–Melody Lewis, Brian Skeet, and Mike Webb–leading the design and research process, we were able to foster a closer connection with the community and their ownership over the outcomes. At the front and center of leading the project direction, CahokiaPHX's activities and responsibilities included: - Co-creating the design process and facilitating the focus group workshop with the local intertribal community. The CahokiaPHX project team helped surface rich insights as there was an already existing sense of belonging and community trust in the group.- Shedding light on the mental models and back stories of the data. Their guidance was invaluable to the research synthesis process of the focus groups.- Visualizing all the assets and leveraging visual language that celebrates Indigenous aesthetics. - Building the Indigenizing Curriculum with feedback from Catapult Design and making all the final decisions on the language and content of the Indigenizing Markers, Ecosystem of Indigenizing, and Indigenizing Curriculum.- Co-developing the documentation for this process with Catapult Design.

During this project, Catapult Design followed CahokiaPHX's pace and style of collaboration, allowing the community to set the tone for this project. Extending the project timeline significantly slowed down the design process, enabling a more purposeful approach to framing problems and identifying opportunities with our community partners. This led to greater ownership from participants and outcomes better aligned with their contexts.

CO-DESIGN TOOLS/ACTIVITIES
We identified focus groups as the design research method that would be most helpful for the CahokiaPHX project team, Melody Lewis, Brian Skeet, and Mike Webb, to engage in meaningful dialogue with community members. The focus group approach proved valuable in gaining insights into individual and collective priorities within the community. Participants were guided through three activities tailored to their context, as well as the research goals and questions. These activities were developed with sensitivity toward participant accessibility, safety, and engagement. They are: 1. Creative Identity Map: This activity surfaced community members' cultural backgrounds, perspectives, and definitions of Indigenizing.2. Uncontained + Cahokia Experience: A journey mapping exercise that revealed each person's motivations and experiences engaging in the space to contextualize their understanding of how Indigenizing happens at CahokiaPHX.3. Knowledge + Support Map: By rapidly brainstorming responses to prompts and discussing them, community members shared how Indigenizing is happening currently and how Indigenizing can be passed on in the future, specific to CahokiaPHX.

INDIGENIZING DESIGN FRAMEWORK Engaging Indigenous creatives and entrepreneurs, we developed three key components that support the teaching and learning of the process of Indigenizing:1. Indigenizing Markers - Our research with the UnContained creatives and CahokiaPHX decision-makers led to the identification of six Markers for Indigenizing based on community members' lived experiences and their engagement with the CahokiaPHX space. These Markers serve as both values that define Indigenizing and indicators that identify if Indigenizing has happened. They are: Community-Led Decision Making, Generational Knowledge, Revitalization, Reclamation, Cultural/Individual Identity, and Reciprocity/Relationship Building.2. Ecosystem of Indigenizing - This Ecosystem visualizes what the Indigenizing Markers look like in the context of CahokiaPHX. By overlaying the Ecosystem with community members' contextual details, we are able to see the place-and-process-based ecosystem that CahokiaPHX represents and the process of Indigenizing in this space. 3. Indigenizing Curriculum - The Curriculum provides lesson plans and activities for Indigenous creatives, social entrepreneurs, and non-Indigenous individuals seeking to apply Indigenous Markers in their work with Indigenous communities. These outcomes are interconnected, each one reinforcing the other. The Indigenizing Markers form the foundational knowledge for both the visualized Ecosystem of Indigenizing and the Indigenizing Curriculum.

CONCLUSION
Through this Framework for Indigenizing, we hope to support Indigenous peoples with the language and decision-making authority to craft their own narratives. The Indigenizing Markers draw from Indigenous circular thinking, offering principles for envisioning the future, gauging progress, and evaluating past efforts. Successfully passing on knowledge to the next generation of Indigenous and Non-Indigenous designers is an important aspect of this work. As shared by an Indigenous Practitioner who participated in this project, we intend to foster generational impact by continuing to support Indigenous communities in "prioritizing and honoring our ancestors' teachings when moving through life while simultaneously adding our personal learnings with the intention to pass down the collected knowledge to our younger generation."

Since the completion of this project, we have been funded by the Bhatia Foundation to test this Framework with Indigenous students from Codefy's workforce development program through a series of workshops, mentorship, and a design challenge with Indigenous Community Collaborative and Brian Skeet Design LLC. We've also secured a second grant from the NEA, propelling us into the next phase and fueling our project's continued progression into the future.

Andersen, M. (2017, August 20). Why can't the U.S. Decolonize Its Design Education? Eye on Design. https://eyeondesign.aiga.org/why-cant-the-u-s-decolonize-its-design-education/