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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
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Designers have the power to influence who is heard, included, and excluded through their work.
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The Designers’ Critical Alphabet was created to introduce social justice and critical theory into design education where these conversations were absent.
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The 'Good Vibes Deck' offers positive, hopeful principles such as gratitude and optimism to balance the critical language of equity work.
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Designers can facilitate the breakdown of organizational power hierarchies to create safer, more inclusive spaces for contribution.
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In many workplaces, equity and inclusion language is resisted; it can be more effective to frame accessibility as a business metric.
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Academia provides a space to experiment with best practices and influence industry and public administration through critical research and writing.
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The Positionality Wheel is a useful tool to surface identities in design teams and foster awareness of privilege and representation.
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Inclusion should not be about fitting marginalized people into existing spaces, but about co-creating new spaces and narratives.
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Emotional and cultural labor for marginalized designers in predominantly white or able-bodied spaces is exhausting and often invisible.
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Self-care practices like therapy are vital for sustaining designers working in challenging social contexts and systemic inequities.
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 us to co-create new conversations."
"Design thinking isn’t the devil. The issue is the society we’re in, which designers reflect."
"Sometimes we have to use the stick, not just empathy, to make people do the work on accessibility."
"The Positionality Wheel helps people see who is really in the room and start honest conversations about identity."
"People that you think don’t have power actually have a lot of power."
"Inclusion doesn’t mean bringing me in. It means creating new spaces where my narrative leads."
"Therapy is a place where it’s 100% all about me, and I need that time to maintain my mental health."
"We need to share our research in academic forums and public media to make change happen."
"A lot of good design work is happening outside Europe and America, but it often goes unseen in mainstream circles."
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