Asking the Right Questions: Life, Hope and Moving Forward During the Pandemic
Summary
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
"People believe that AI is a gift from the universe, when it’s really just a bunch of zeros and ones."
Jemma Ahmed Jon Fukuda Abby Covert Stefanie Hutka Louis RosenfeldTake Back those Words! Reclaiming and Reenergizing the Vocabulary of UX
August 21, 2026
"This candidate experience was terrible for everybody but especially disadvantaging folks who started with lower confidence."
Libby MaurerTreating Diversity & Inclusion in Hiring as a Design Problem
December 5, 2019
"We’re helping to create those natural conditions in which design and designers thrive by bringing our own sense of sacredness and nobility."
Jon FukudaTheme One Intro
September 8, 2022
"After this program, we saw a shift from only 15% strategic research to 56%."
Marjorie Stainback Kelsey KingmanTransforming Strategic Research Capacity through Democratization
October 24, 2019
"A lot of my team are introverts; we do daily coffee chats to keep the team connected remotely."
Amy Jiménez Márquez Michael J. Metts Joie ChungThe Atypical UX Manager Path
July 23, 2020
"Scrappy grassroots methods never fully go away; you always need to ask where you can get scrappy next."
Megan BlockerA Selectively Scrappy Approach to ResearchOps
November 8, 2018
"Testing with a screen reader is fine for QA, but user research must be with actual screen reader users."
Samuel ProulxDesigning beyond caricatures: Embracing real, diverse user needs
December 4, 2024
"Design ops needs to shift from reactive to proactive, envisioning a future state vision and moving from disaster recovery to continuous resilience."
Dave Malouf Adrienne Allnutt Jon Fukuda Dominique WardThe Future of DesignOps
January 8, 2024
"Digital literacy requires someone to examine and peruse information on digital platforms, not just basic use."
Rittika BasuAge and Interfaces: Equipping Older Adults with Technological Tools
February 23, 2023