Metagov Community Contributes to Calm Technology Standards
Metagov’s mission to cultivate tools, practices, and communities that enable self-governance in the digital age aligns with the Calm Tech Institute’s (CTI) work on Calm Tech Certified™, a certification designed to guide the development of technology that integrates seamlessly into daily life without overwhelming people’s attention. Through collaboration with Metagov community members and researchers, CTI refined its certification standards, ensuring they are both practical and impactful.
What is the Calm Tech Institute?
Calm Tech Institute (CTI) creates standards for technology that respect human attention, foster autonomy, and encourage resilience. Its Calm Tech Certified™ program evaluates products across six dimensions—attention, periphery, robustness, light, sound, and materials—promoting usability, accessibility, and sustainability. This approach represents a new way of designing tools and devices that enhance, rather than dominate, everyday life.
The Role of Metagov in Supporting Standards Development
Metagov members served as a “pre-processor” in developing Calm Tech Certified™, offering early-stage feedback and diverse perspectives that significantly improved the certification draft. This collaborative effort helped identify gaps and refine key components, ensuring the standard would be ready for real-world application.
The development process began in May 2024, with foundational work taking place at the Ostrom Workshop in Indiana. Metagov members worked alongside CTI’s founder, Amber Case, to draft essential parts of the certification. Instead of sending out a document for passive review, Case requested 1 hour calls where she could guide the reviewers through the entirety of the standard draft, allowing her to gather real-time feedback.
How the Metagov Community Contributed
During the finalization of Calm Tech Certified™, Metagov members offered diverse perspectives that guided the Calm Tech Institute (CTI) in refining the certification. Cent Hosten stressed the importance of peripheral attention—ensuring technology remains useful without demanding constant focus—and advised separating light and sound into distinct categories. CTI adopted these recommendations, resulting in a more streamlined, six-category structure.
Scott Davies suggested several clarifications and improvements around designing products that “work when they fail,” strengthening criteria around robustness and resilience. He also urged separate treatment of IoT and digital products to capture their unique design considerations—feedback that CTI incorporated, expanding the certification’s scope to address a variety of product types. Brett Frischmann challenged the assumption that technology should always be frictionless, advocating for “thoughtful friction” that fosters user autonomy. CTI responded by broadening the standard to acknowledge moments where deliberate friction can enhance user agency.
Practical design and accessibility considerations were also pivotal. Greg Cassel suggested introducing automatic low-power modes and customizable volume levels, which CTI added to increase energy efficiency and inclusivity. Clifford Usher contributed psycho-spiritual insights, emphasizing the need for calm technology to be both universally accessible and beneficial across socio-economic contexts. Finally, Jack Murray-Brown underscored the value of physical controls—such as a power-off button—and aligning with WCAG guidelines for digital interfaces. These recommendations reinforced the certification’s accessibility measures and highlighted the importance of tactile feedback. By integrating this wide-ranging input, CTI arrived at a more holistic and user-centered standard, culminating in the certification’s October 29, 2024, launch.
Impact and Next Steps for Calm Tech Standards
The Calm Tech Certified™ framework marks a significant step toward fostering a new class of technology that respects human needs. By encouraging thoughtful design and rewarding products that enhance autonomy and peripheral attention, the certification creates opportunities for companies to differentiate themselves while addressing societal concerns about technology’s role in daily life.
Following its successful launch, CTI is focused on:
Expanding its network of certified reviewers.
Developing educational resources, such as guides and case studies, to support product developers.
Partnering with academic institutions and industry leaders to promote calm technology principles.
Organizing workshops and conferences to build awareness of the certification.
Refining the certification based on real-world applications and ongoing feedback.
Raising value-aligned funding for the project that understands the necessary slow, but meaningful early growth of a standard.
Acknowledgments
Metagov is grateful to the Calm Tech Institute and its founder, Amber Case, for inviting this collaboration, and extends thanks to all the Metagov community members whose expertise enriched Calm Tech Certified™ : Cent Hosten, Hash Nabi, Scott Davies, Brett Frischmann, Gregory Scott Cassel, Clifford Usher, Jack Murray-Brown, Dr. Michael Zargham, Eugene Leventhal, Joshua Tan, Orion Reed, RJ Cordes, and Sayer Tindall.
For more information on calm technology and its guiding principles, explore:
