The design process is a field in which we can experience our shared humanity . So many of us want to contribute to the betterment of our world, and a liberatory design process can go beyond the status quo of working for user engagement and take us into the field of equity and collective empowerment.
My strength lies in a "desire to learn.” I am no stranger to ambiguity and gnarly problems. I try my best to assume nothing and remain in a place of understanding and empathy. I look for the questions that guide our process, and offer a mix of liberatory mindsets, modes, and methods to find our way.
I see my role in a project is to:
a) Facilitate learning, build understanding, and visualize possibilities: I listen, gather, and clarify key ideas through story, dialogue, interaction flows, system visuals, infographs, wireframes, and data.
b) Be a partner and ally: act as a support for all team members. Including communities of direct impact, the engineering team, the product and design team, sales teams, funders, or anyone involved, I am here to support the goals of the entire community of stakeholders.
d) Bring us back to the vision and make it happen: maintain clarity of both the forest and the trees at whatever phase of the development cycle. There is a "why" behind every design decision and there is a path to implement any imagined product experience.
"To get to a good product, or at least a successful one, I see that team members must understand the motivations, challenges, lived experiences, and aspirations happening in a real-world context. This is the foundation for delivering a product people want to participate in."
Advancing "design thinking" to "liberatory design"
The fine folks at the National Equity Project and Stanford d.school partnered to evolve the commonly practice Design Thinking framework into a less oppressive, more equitable design process called Liberatory Design. I integrate these modes to help our team see where we are, what we are doing, and how our process can lead to innovative and equitable outcomes.
Space to observe the now. Integrated into team rituals.
Space to share observations, connect dots, and learn together.
Include the context of the user and their many important connections.
Hear, see, and love the people who we design to serve, support, and empower.
Uncover the root equity challenges present, and put language to it.
Question deeply where patterns, processes, and motivations maintain the current system and lived reality.
If this equity challenge was liberated, what would be true?
Build the design concept(s) to be used and interacted with.
Experiment and observe system change, with the prototyped intervention.
Liberatory Design (http://www.liberatorydesign.com) is the result of a collaboration between Tania Anaissie, David Clifford, Susie Wise, and the National Equity Project, Victor Cary and Tom Malarkey.
Declaring liberatory mindsets evolves the design process, articulates our shared values for equity and human dignity, and assesses how those values become real in our work.
Illustrations by David Clifford
The methods used in the design process are fully informed by the questions at hand, the resources available, and the degree of clarity of vision present.
interviews & focus groups
co-design
creative facilitation
journey maps
story mapping
systems mapping
usability testing
in-product feedback
object-oriented UX
wireflows
design experiments
team building
behaviorial design
information architecture
prototyping
body-storming
and so many more…
influenced by
