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Summary
Trauma is a pervasive, universal experience – no less than 75% of the world’s population and 90% of Americans report experiencing at least one traumatic event in their lifetime, with four or more being the norm. There are 11 types of trauma, including individual, interpersonal, collective, and historical experiences like cancer, abuse, racial discrimination, and war. It is also experienced second-hand when someone witnesses or hears about another’s traumatic experience. Without considering the context of trauma, UX professionals may be missing opportunities to gain more customers and allies. Instead, they may be accidentally harming others or pushing them away. This is especially true for researchers, designers, content moderators, customer support workers, and others directly interacting with users and their experiences. Is your work recreating the dynamics of abuse? And could you be harming not just your users but yourself and your team in the design process? Trauma-informed technology experts Carol Scott and Melissa Eggleston provide a high-level overview of trauma-informed research and design as well as harmful practices common in the design, product, and tech environments. They give a real-world example of how UX professionals may undermine their own goals by ignoring the context of trauma. Carol and Melissa also discuss how AI and emerging tech could be trauma-informed from conception. Gain a trauma-informed perspective to improve your work and receive resources for further learning. Takeaways Develop an initial understanding of trauma and trauma-informed approaches, including the theoretical, practical, and research-based underpinnings. Deep exploration of secondary trauma, why it’s relevant for UX professionals, and how to mitigate it for sustainable careers. Apply a trauma-informed approach to AI and emerging technologies research and design.
Key Insights
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Trauma is a universal human experience with at least 70% of people globally and 90% in the US reporting at least one traumatic event.
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Trauma varies widely; what is traumatic for one person may not be for another, making individualized approaches essential.
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Retraumatization occurs when a trauma survivor is triggered into reliving past trauma, which trauma-informed design seeks to prevent.
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SAMHSA's six principles—safety, trustworthiness, peer support, collaboration, empowerment, and cultural humility—form the core of trauma-informed approaches.
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Secondary and vicarious trauma affect researchers and tech workers exposed to traumatic stories or content, requiring mitigation and self-care strategies.
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Trauma-informed design is distinct from but complementary to design ethics, rooted in clinical research and social work principles.
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Trauma impacts brain structure and function, rewiring decision-making and emotional centers, which changes sense-making and user experience.
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Trauma-informed approaches in tech can reduce harm, improve user trust, enhance outcomes, and even increase business revenue.
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Many common tech experiences inadvertently retraumatize users, such as poorly designed UI/UX that ignore context or sensitive content.
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Teams should practice trauma-informed care internally, including open communication, adequate supervision, and self-care planning.
Notable Quotes
"Trauma is broad—it’s any event or circumstance resulting in physical harm, emotional harm, or life threatening."
"The whole point of trauma-informed work is you don’t have to tell me, so you don’t have to express it the same way I do."
"Trauma-informed approaches are like the seat belts and airbags of your tech."
"You cannot have one principle without the other; you need all six SAMHSA principles for it to work."
"When someone is retraumatized, they relive the trauma as if it’s happening right now; there’s nothing they can do to stop it."
"We often forget to care about ourselves and our teams when we’re doing research or clinical work."
"Trauma-informed design is good design plus a little more to really serve all users."
"Secondary trauma can happen from just hearing someone else’s story one or two times."
"Transparency builds trust; hiding details erodes it—for example, a link promising to take you somewhere but doesn’t."
"Trauma-informed care was first developed in social work, and UX can learn a lot by collaborating with clinical disciplines."
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