Citizen Sandbox™
A new approach for putting the citizen voice right next to you when using and designing with AI.
Applying a human-centred design process to designing and using AI, we help you embed citizen values.
Our Process
Citizen Sandbox™ pre-validates foundational values with citizens. So your AI usage and design can better reflect what citizens value — across government and industry.
Citizen Sandbox™ is a social enterprise on a mission to put citizen values at the heart of AI. We work with citizens to validate foundational values and translate them into actionable tools.
Our process is a continual loop: we validate foundational values with citizens, translate them into tools, and put them to work in government and industry.
It doesn't replace the citizen engagement you do on individual projects — it lays the groundwork, so you can keep innovating from a shared base of validated values.
What are foundational values?
Foundational values are the things citizens say matter most, and they don't change from project to project.
Our tools build citizen-informed values into how you work and design with AI — so the citizen voice stays right next to you.
Here's how it works, using one value as an example — Contestability.
The aim — high level
The work — Citizen Sandbox tools turn principles into practice
AI-HCD Framework
AI-Human Centred Design
AI usage and development present new challenges and opportunities that sit outside the mindsets and conditions factored into conventional design frameworks. That's why we created the AI-HCD framework.
A new AI-HCD framework that centres human values and aligns them for innovation. Grounded in human-centred design, AI-HCD keeps people at the centre — so you solve the right problem and build AI that's fit-for-purpose.
The Citizen Council
A citizen-informed council for better AI chat outputs
The Citizen Council is a set of six citizen-informed members who overlay their lenses on your AI chat outputs. It helps you produce better, more inclusive results — and surface the biases baked into large language models before they reach the public.
Missing Voices
Ensures everyone is present in the thinking
Question Assumptions
Names what's been taken for granted
Name the Risk
Asks what happens if this fails
Speak With Care
Writes with care built in
Keep the Human
Keeps human oversight
Frank & Fearless
Gives honest, fearless advice
AI Design Planning Tool
Never start from scratch, wasting time validating foundational values. Create citizen-aligned AI products and services using our planning tool. It turns citizen values into actionable tasks in an easy-to-use service blueprint.
"I want a human to be able to override a decision made by AI. I want it to be easy for me to inform that decision, and easy for a human to override it. I don't want to have to make a formal complaint in a complicated process."
Pilot with us
We're piloting with a small number of partners across government and industry.
open
AI-HCD Framework
What the pilot includes
Access to the framework, the playbook, facilitated workshop series and evaluation.
The benefit
Your team builds capability in AI-HCD and leaves with an operational model — making your team and organisation innovation-ready.
open
Citizen Council
What the pilot includes
Access to the Citizen Council prompts, facilitated guidance for your team and evaluation.
The benefit
These citizen-informed council members help you generate better quality AI chat — so your outputs are richer, more inclusive, and reflect what citizens expect.
soon
AI Design Planning Tool
A planning tool that builds citizen-informed foundational values into your AI product design from the start. Join the pilot waitlist.
Expressions of interest are now open.
Register your interestAbout us
Dani and Mel have years of experience as designers and educators, across industry and government. They understand the barriers to doing human-centred design and the challenges of innovating with AI.
Citizen Sandbox™ is an innovative methodology that addresses the real frustrations public servants and industry face when doing AI-HCD.
Mel and Dani are thought leaders in AI-HCD and innovation, having developed a first-of-its-kind AI prompt library for the Australian Public Service and Victorian Public Service using a co-design methodology.
