Doing good through collaborative practices: The value of co-designing a digital commons platform for an equitable digital society

This research proposes a digital commons design framework to transform a privately-owned donation platform into a community-managed platform (digital commons) with a local network of civil society organizations (CSOs) in Brazil, aiming to understand the value of this approach for fostering an equitable digital society. Digital commons platforms are collectively owned and managed by a community of users rather than governments or corporations. Addressing the United Nations’ call for digital commons as a global public good, we introduce a novel design framework, which translates Ostrom’s seven rule types for collective action situations into actionable design propositions. Using Participatory Action Research (PAR), we engaged CSOs in co-design workshops to re-design an existing mobile app into a digital commons platform. The findings present insights into applying this framework and the key concepts of digital equity as defined by the platform’s community members, offering a practical approach to create more equitable platforms.