The power to heal and harm
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
"You have to build something, ship something, and make something especially when dealing with hundreds of thousands of objects."
Uday GajendarTheme 1: Introduction
June 9, 2021
"This moment is yours to shape. If you step up to it, you won’t just be expanding your toolkit. You’re going to be expanding your influence, your impact, and the future of our profession itself."
Megan BlockerTheme 2 Intro
March 12, 2025
"If we don't do hard thinking and critical collaboration when building agents, we’ll end up with armies of unused agents."
Tina WeisserWhen AI Agents Meet Reality. Service Design Lessons from a Pilot
February 26, 2026
"DPM loneliness and siloing happen because of wearing too many hats and inheriting mismatched responsibilities."
John Calhoun Rachel PosmanTwo Sides of the DesignOps Coin: Teams Ops and Product Ops
January 8, 2024
"Space is congested, with thousands of satellites and tens of thousands of debris pieces orbiting Earth."
Michal Anne RogondinoSaving Outer Space: The First UX Design System for Our Nation’s Satellites
January 8, 2024
"Unmanaged challenges reduce the quality of life in society."
Onur Kocan Ayhan EnsiciUnderstanding the Strategy for Civic Design in a Complex City: Istanbul
November 16, 2022
"Volume is a losing game because we cannot outcompete full AI automation for sheer speed and quantity of insights."
Llewyn PaineCoexisting with AI: A practical guide for researchers to navigate tools, ethics, and integration
March 11, 2025
"We have to be deliberate about the long-term change we are creating and consider unintended consequences more explicitly."
Sheryl CababaExpanding Your Design Lens with Systems Thinking
February 23, 2023
"Compensation is so important to thank people for their time, and you will definitely build your recruitment pool much faster if you offer it."
Marisa BernsteinIt Takes GRIT: Lessons from the Small, but Mighty World of Civic Usability Testing
December 9, 2021
