Summary
Research holds great potential to both heal and harm—both ourselves and the communities we engage with. This session will help you to understand these impacts, and learn best practices to reduce harm and foster healing ethically and responsibly.
Key Insights
-
•
Research is never neutral; it is embedded within power structures and influences who is seen and heard.
-
•
Design research lacks formal ethical guardrails, unlike professions like social work or medicine, creating vulnerabilities.
-
•
The culture of urgency and speed in research often leads to extractive, performative practices that minimize harm.
-
•
Moral injury in research arises from systemic ethical failure, creating profound conflicts between values and work demands.
-
•
Minimizing or sanitizing harm enables institutions to avoid accountability while perpetuating cycles of ethical breaches.
-
•
Researchers can reclaim agency by setting personal ethical boundaries, advocating for care, and building supportive communities.
-
•
The RK Institute’s two loops model illustrates how old unethical research systems decline while trauma-informed approaches emerge.
-
•
Trauma-responsive research centers five principles: safety, transparency, co-creation, empowerment, and hope.
-
•
Slowing down research is a radical form of resistance prioritizing dignity, trust, and sustainability over speed.
-
•
Accountability and ethical frameworks must be integrated into organizational cultures, not left to individual researchers.
Notable Quotes
"You can't be neutral on a moving train."
"In design, it's the BYOE model—bring your own ethics."
"Moral injury is not just about witnessing harm; it's the inner knowing that you might also be complicit in producing it."
"Minimizing harm protects institutions, not people."
"Slowing down is not inefficiency; it is a commitment to dignity and trust."
"Moving fast isn’t just breaking things, it’s actually breaking people."
"The pressure to produce insights quickly defines many organizations shaped by 'move fast and break things' culture."
"Discomfort should not be dismissed; it’s a signpost for necessary change."
"Research should prioritize participant and researcher well-being over institutional convenience."
"The power of a bold idea uttered publicly in defiance of dominant opinion cannot be easily measured."
Or choose a question:
More Videos
"People often change their entire selves just to seem educated or fit in at work."
Jackie Velasquez-RossTalent Acquisition and Our Responsibility
June 16, 2020
"We lacked the insight to interpret what we were seeing in ways that were culturally relevant in those particular markets."
Joi FreemanA New Vantage Point: Building a Pipeline for Multifaceted Research(ers)
March 30, 2020
"People who are struggling are constantly battling an unstable financial situation, which comes with a high cognitive and emotional energy cost."
Yasmine KhanChecking Bias and Listening to Financially Vulnerable Americans
March 30, 2020
"If we don’t respect legacy habits, we risk interrupting workflows and causing users to have a bad day."
Paula BachImproving Legacy Software: How Much Better Does it Have to Be?
March 11, 2022
"We had no recipe, no formula, just vibes."
Briana ThomasThe Quiet Force: Uncovering Hidden Leadership in High-Impact Design Teams
September 24, 2024
"Marketing is an essential collaborator because they help package and communicate insights organization-wide."
Andrew MichaelBuilding a Product Insights Team
March 10, 2022
"Designers’ medium is code; until your great design is in production code, your design is a figment of your imagination."
Dawn ResselFull-Stack User Experiences: A Marriage of Design and Technology
June 9, 2016
"Stakeholders are users too; the product we’re sharing is the research and learnings for their decision-making."
Sara LogelYour Colleagues are Your Users Too
March 29, 2023
"Collaboration is actually not anarchy in companies. There’s always this need for control."
Abby Covert Tomer SharonPanel: Collaboration Tools
November 6, 2017
