Log in or create a free Rosenverse account to watch this video.
Log in Create free account100s of community videos are available to free members. Conference talks are generally available to Gold members.
Summary
In this Civic Design Community call, we heard from Lesley-Ann Noel, PhD., and Jennifer Strickland, Senior Human Centered Design, Accessibility Engineer. Jennifer and Lesley-Ann chatted about how they approach equitable design through language, frameworks, tools, methods — and self-care. The conversation will cover how Lesley-Ann created The Designer’s Critical Alphabet, and introduce the new book she contributed to,The Black Experience in Design: Identity, Expression, & Reflection.
Key Insights
-
•
Designers have significant power to influence who is heard and included in design processes, impacting social equity.
-
•
The Designers Critical Alphabet helps designers critically engage with social justice issues, especially in less diverse environments.
-
•
The Good Vibes deck offers positive, Global South-inspired design principles like gratitude and optimism to balance critical work.
-
•
Disrupting traditional power hierarchies in organizations can encourage more open and equal participation in design.
-
•
Positionality tools enable clearer awareness of identities present in a space and highlight systemic homogeneity.
-
•
Framing accessibility and equity in terms of business goals or measurable outcomes can help overcome resistance in conservative workplaces.
-
•
Academia serves as an experimental space for developing and sharing best practices that can influence industry over time.
-
•
Marginalized designers often carry extra emotional and cultural labor not recognized by their workplaces.
-
•
True inclusion means co-creating new narratives and spaces rather than simply inviting marginalized people into existing frameworks.
-
•
Global South design perspectives and international collaboration are crucial to decolonizing dominant Western design narratives.
Notable Quotes
"We as designers have the opportunity to be brave, have the courage and humility to do the work."
"I don’t want to be included in your conversation. I want to co-create new conversation."
"Designers can help facilitate the breakdown of power structures, even if we get pushback from status quo."
"Empathy is a great goal, but sometimes we have to use the stick and provide checklists for what must be done."
"Positionality wheel helps people see who is really in the room and makes it easier to talk about identity."
"People we think are powerless often actually have a lot more power than we expect."
"When you improve accessibility, you increase engagement and success metrics—those are measurable wins."
"It’s exhausting every day doing extra emotional and cultural labor beyond the design work itself."
"Academia pressures us to share research for academic audiences, but public communication is key to impact."
"Critical design thinking tools still have value if we consciously operate within and disrupt hegemonic spaces."
Or choose a question:
More Videos
"A great design solution for a poorly defined problem is infinitely worse than an average solution applied to a well-defined problem."
Billy CarlsonIdeation tips for Product Managers
December 6, 2022
"Both iOS and Android have built-in screen magnification and voice control that don’t require extra software."
Sam ProulxMobile Accessibility: Why Moving Accessibility Beyond the Desktop is Critical in a Mobile-first World
November 17, 2022
"Developers are stinking gods among men, generous in their selfishness who keep fixing what’s not broken until it is."
Dan WillisEnterprise Storytelling Sessions
May 13, 2015
"Not a single person on this relationship map reported to me. That’s how I affect design at scale at Autodesk."
Michael PolivkaScaling Design through Relationship Maps
November 7, 2017
"Trying to map all possible connotations and context in language is mind-bogglingly computationally expensive."
Karen McGrane Jeff EatonAI for Information Architects: Are the robots coming for our jobs?
November 21, 2024
"Context is really super important not only for design and research but for how you design organizations and ways of working."
Leisa ReicheltOpening Keynote: Operating in Context
November 7, 2018
"Values determine the team environment you create; they permeate through leadership and affect performance and happiness."
Kim Holt Emma Wylds Pearl Koppenhaver Maisee XiongA Salesforce Panel Discussion on Values-Driven DesignOps
September 8, 2022
"Change is a game of inches; we take two steps forward, six steps back."
Jacqui Frey Alison RandSetting the Table for Dynamic Change
October 24, 2019
"We have to learn to speak in the language of the business to get their attention and investment."
How to Identify and Increase your "Experience Quotient"
June 15, 2018
