We increasingly rely on digital spaces. Yet without a common language for them, we cannot imagine, articulate, and realize a shared future.

We can summarize patterns that aid human flourishing, and form languages to imagine collectively. This idea, referred to as “pattern language”, was first used by architects to enable ordinary people to design and build their physical spaces. The most habitable environments are incrementally built by the inhabitants, but the specialization in design and construction has limited personal agency in modifying our environment. Pattern language is a way to penetrate that specialization, and it might work for digital spaces as well.

By returning agency to non-specialists, more can explore the balance between individual agency and community autonomy.