Overview
What does Boston sound like when you stop to listen?
The realtalk@Boston listening portal invites you to do just that—this public-facing website is a digital space you can listen to hundreds of Bostonians, in their own voices, share stories about their neighborhoods, hopes, frustrations, and dreams for the future of their city.
Designed and developed by the MIT Center for Constructive Communication (CCC) as part of the realtalk@Boston project, it is a living record of over 250 recorded conversations across 11 Boston communities. Each conversation feels like sitting in a living room or community center, listening as neighbors open up about what life in Boston is really like. From stories of displacement and the longing for belonging, to questions of safety and care, to who gets to thrive here, these dialogues reveal a city both proud and restless—rich in culture, yet still struggling to make space for everyone.
Artifact: Website
Partnership: MIT Center for Constructive Communication
Role: UI/UX design, Branding
Team: Lucas Drummond (developer), Maya Detweiler (project manager), Artemisia Luk (photography)
Time: April - September 2025
DESIGN QUESTION
How can a website make the richness and complexity of multiple human perspectives come alive?
Each ‘explore page’ weaves together a set of highlights—sometimes aligned, sometimes in tension—into a central narrative. Visitors to the site can “roll the dice” to discover new conversation clusters, each weaving together a mix of perspectives and story highlights.
A “scrollytelling” experience guides users through the AI tools used throughout the project.
The website is optimized for audio storytelling. Throughout the experience, users are guided to listen to highlights from community conversations.
The branding is aligns with the conceptual vision of the project: to find cohesion despite diverse and occasionally clashing community viewpoints.
Designing a Public Launch Party for Listening
On November 10, 2025, we invited 150 Boston residents to “Boston Stories, Unscripted”, a celebration of community action and artistic co-creation hosted at the beautiful Artists for Humanity gallery space.
The evening began with a range of hands-on tech and art demos presenting ways for listening to become a part of civic and community infrastructure. This was followed by a panel discussion between local organizations from the city of Boston, and performances by some of the artists in the program, including the premiere of "A Decent Place to
Live," which set community housing stories against a live quartet of opera
singers. I acted as creative director for the evening, setting the vision for the evening, coordinated the performers, designed the flow of the program, and handled the furniture and spatial design for the space.
Translating the Digital Brand into Physical Space
To help transform the event venue into a space to explore the web experience, I designed and fabricated a series of signs in the style of the audio collages on the website.
Each tower combines quotes, themes, images, and assets from the narrative arcs which guide the listening experience. To express how sense-making weaves together disparate themes, I used a CNC machine to cut thread-like curves and vinyl letters to give shape to each narrative.
