Asking the Right Questions: Life, Hope and Moving Forward During the Pandemic
Summary
Details to come.
Key Insights
-
•
Starting meetings or classes with a simple warm-up increases attentiveness and presence.
-
•
Remote teaching often results in students keeping cameras off, impacting engagement, but this can be navigated with inclusive strategies.
-
•
Peloton taught the speaker practical leadership lessons including compassion, collaboration, and community support.
-
•
Consistency is critical in leadership and personal growth, exemplified by the speaker's 73-week exercise streak.
-
•
Inclusive leadership requires acknowledging where people are physically and emotionally, offering alternatives accordingly.
-
•
Organizations must consistently provide education and enforce policies addressing discrimination, considering intersectional identities.
-
•
Leadership must listen actively and avoid placing the burden of diversity work solely on marginalized groups.
-
•
Recognizing external stressors such as global events is essential to empathetic leadership and inclusive workplaces.
-
•
Language matters; everyday expressions can unintentionally exclude or offend marginalized communities.
-
•
Inclusion and accessibility should be embedded into every designer's responsibilities, not isolated to specialists.
Notable Quotes
"I had you all do a warm-up before we started to help everyone be present and calm."
"Sometimes working with a bunch of boxes and letters on Zoom was the reality of remote classes."
"Be compassionate with yourself and others. Not everyone likes high fives, and that's okay."
"Collaboration is key. I'm never alone in a Peloton class, even at 4:30 in the morning."
"Consistency is key. I'm on a 73-week streak right now, and that's pretty badass."
"Identity is not monolithic; policies should address layered experiences."
"It is not the responsibility of marginalized groups to do all the educating about their experiences."
"Listen is a skill that is not emphasized enough in leadership."
"Watch your language; terms like 'that's so lame' can be exclusionary or offensive."
"Inclusion and accessibility need to be part of every designer's role, even if today it is one person's job."
Or choose a question:
More Videos
"Corporate culture types—clan, ad-hocracy, control, compete—shape what software tools will succeed or fail."
Robert ReimannTaming Design Complexity with UX Models
June 8, 2017
"Find a mentor—an AI, a person, or a project—and use community resources like Open Austin to learn and grow."
Bryce Benton[Demo] AI-powered UX enhancement: Aligning GitHub documentation with USWDS at Austin Public Library
June 4, 2024
"In business-to-business contexts, finding a champion within your sales or account management teams can open access to users for research."
Christian RohrerResearch Operations at Scale
November 7, 2017
"Companies parachuting in to 'study' marginalized groups often do more harm than good when they don't build local capacity."
Tricia WangThe most popular design thinking strategy is BS
January 27, 2022
"The interface becomes a radically adaptive surface—an intelligent canvas that reacts to your behavior and context."
Josh Clark Veronika KindredSentient Design, AI, and the Radically Adaptive Experience (1st of 3 seminars)
January 15, 2025
"We treated user research and journey mapping as non-negotiable basics, even when pressured for rapid delivery."
Magdalena ZadaraZero Hour: How to Get Far Quickly When Starting Your Digital Service Unit Late
November 16, 2022
"Don't just throw a URL at someone without context, explain why it’s interesting."
Nick CochranGrowing in Enterprise Design through Making Connections
June 20, 2019
"An ops-focused discussion guide helps us gather feedback from leadership and designers so our recommendations meet their needs."
Briana Thomas Christina RodriguezWhen Design Ops Comes in H.O.T. : A Tale of a Transformed Design Org
September 30, 2021
"Personifying the environment as a stakeholder is like Trojan horsing important climate conversations into the design process."
Sheryl Cababa Alexis OhThinking in systems to address climate with Sheryl Cababa
June 12, 2024