My research explores how design shapes the conversations that matter most — those involving high-stakes decisions, leveraged positions, or complex questions of identity. I work across civic and healthcare contexts, shaping artifacts, environments, and systems that make these conversations more possible, more equitable, and more productive.
At Northeastern University, I lead and contribute to projects at the intersection of service design, technology, and the material environment. Current work includes Civic Data Theatre, a Mellon Foundation–funded initiative using theatrical methods to support equitable civic data engagement, and a collaboration with the City of Boston’s Office of Participatory Budgeting. In healthcare, my focus is on facilitative objects and mHealth interventions that strengthen conversations between patients and caregivers, particularly in chronic care contexts. I am part of a collaborative rural health service redesign project with the Knox Clinic in Knox County, Maine, expanding access through mobile health delivery models.
Earlier civic projects include work with the Obama White House’s My Brother’s Keeper initiative for Southwestern Pennsylvania and the PBS affiliate WQED’s THINK! documentary series, exploring dialogue across political and cultural divides. These efforts continue to inform my approach to designing for public conversations.
My practice is grounded in Transition Design, an approach that sees design as a catalyst for long-term cultural and ecological sustainability. Across projects, I focus on the design of “facilitative infrastructures”—material, technological, and social systems that support meaningful change over time.
Before academia, I led a research-driven design consultancy serving government agencies, nonprofits, universities, regionally focused businesses, and Fortune 100 companies. I have taught interdisciplinary, research-informed design at Carnegie Mellon University, the University of Colorado, the University of Denver, and the Rocky Mountain College of Art & Design, and now at Northeastern, where I teach research methods and behavioral design for healthcare and service systems.
My recent book, Conversational Design: Improving participation and decision-making in public organizations (BIS Publishers, 2024), synthesizes much of this work. I have received funding from the NIH, the Mellon Foundation, and The Heinz Endowments to advance new models for civic and healthcare conversations.
Research/Publications Highlights
- Surfacing Values in Difficult Conversations: game-based training to lower the stakes on difficult topics, chapter in peer-reviewed book, Playing with the Rules: The Ethics of Playing, Researching, and Teaching Games in the Writing Classroom, Palgrave Macmillan, Jan 2021
- Attuning Contraception Choice and Patient Values, Arnold Mages, Michael; Lin, Janice; Xu, Anni. paper published in the proceedings of the Design Research Society: DRS2020: Synergy, Griffith University, Brisbane, AU, August 11–14, 2020
- Facilitating collaboration and trust on cross-cultural teams: Designing conversations through evocative objects, Ciliotta Chehade, Estefania; Arnold Mages, Michael. workshop presentation, Design Research Society: DRS2020: Synergy, Griffith University, Brisbane, AU, August 11–14, 2020
- Supporting Neighborhood Resilience with Civic Conversations, in SCORAI – Sustainable Consumption and Social Justice in an Urbanizing World, June 11, 2020
- Designing Difficult Conversations for Multiple Stakeholders, in RSD8, the Symposium of the Systemic Design Association, 2019
- Researching Transition Design, article with Dimeji Onafuwa, in Cuadernos del Centro de Estudios en Diseno y Comunicacion, Universidad de Palermo, Buenos Aires, special issue on Transition Design, 2018
- Designing for Civic Conversations presentation at: Relating Systems Thinking and Design 6, Oslo, Norway, October 18-20, 2017
- Redesigning the Town Hall: Deliberative Community Forums presentation at: National League of Cities City Summit, Pittsburgh, PA, November 16-19, 2016
- Uber and Language/Action Theory paper presented at: DRS2016: Design + Research + Society – Future-Focused Thinking, Brighton, UK, June 27-30, 2016
Departments
Art + Design, Center for Design
Education
- PhD, Design, Carnegie Mellon University
- Master of Arts, Digital Media Studies, University of Denver
- Bachelor of Music, Composition, University of Arizona
Past Clients
- Oracle Systems
- DocuSign
- The Heinz Endowments
- The City of Pittsburgh
- The Denver Art Museum
- PennDOT (Pennsylvania Department of Transportation)
- The Remaking Cities Institute
Research Focus
- Decision Making
- Systems Thinking
- Design thinking
- Visual Design
- Public Policy
- Ethnographic Methods and Ethics
- • Conversation Design
- • Participatory Design
- Health Design
- Transition Design
