13 responsible design strategies I practice

As designer I am putting all my efforts to always have an ethical approach in the projects I join.

Here there are some practical strategies I usually implement:

1. Co-design with our stakeholders

Collaborative/participatory design is when designers work directly with a community of stakeholders to collaboratively design a solution, and particularly with those who will benefit directly from the design outcome.

A Citizens’ Jury is a small group of randomly selected citizens, representative of the demographics in the area, that come together to reach a collective decision or recommendation on a topic through informed deliberation. Photo credit: Jefferson Center

2. Practice public interest design

It’s about seeking to address and solve social issues focusing on benefiting people rather than profit needs. Public interest design may include a variety of products and services ranging from low cost mobile phones to Internet network access in emerging economies.

3. Ban stereotyped personae

Enough with fake or biased profiles describing white European neurotypical successful people! Let’s try working out some mindsets instead, since a mindset segmentation is broad enough to identify behavioral tendencies without prescribing personae with a name, age, gender or any other fixed demographic.

The DISC model I redesigned

4. Target users and non-users

For instance, we take into account activists who would protest against the technology we are working on, or people who may not use our service but may be affected by it because of where they live or the work they do.

The Inclusive Panda is a tool by designer Per Axbom aiming to understand and map out all the people we are not consciously designing for but who may still be impacted by our solution.

5. Think creatively for accessibility-first

We truly believe that designing for people with permanent disabilities actually results in design that benefits people universally.

In 1802, Italian Agostino Fantoni invented the typewriter to enable his blind sister to write. Photo credit: Mali Maeder from Pexels

6. Stop converging at all costs

The double diamond in design thinking process involves an alternation of divergent and convergent phases. But what is the use of striving to diverge, if then everything flattens out in a convergence that kills differences? Let’s take into consideration not to converge always and at any cost.

The alternative diagram proposed by Alastair Somerville to design for Post-Normality.

7. Think to/as minorities

Sometimes putting ourselves in the shoes of someone from a minority can lead to extremely innovative ideas. For example, you may ask yourself “how would someone from the autistic spectrum solve this problem?”.

You can put yourself in someone’s shoes more easily through a classic empathy card.

8. Facilitate the challenges of someone’s personal ecosystem

For example, I try to think about how the technology I am working on could help people struggling to make ends meet.

9. Match context and capacity through change

When a person’s environment changes, their capacity could change too even if their capabilities don’t.

10. Counterbalance through positive discrimination

Through artificial intelligence or in our own choices as humans, I give more space to those who have less opportunity to express themselves or participate.

11. Embrace my own diversity

Even if some of you may be white European middle-aged successful men, we all have our unique way of feeling, sensing and understanding. Welcoming our own diversity means accepting that others are no edge cases more than we are.

12. Stand explicitly against normality and discrimination

Times are changing. Movements like #MeToo and Black Lives Matter put a spotlight on inequity. As designers, we have the right and the duty to protest when we think that decisions over some products and services may increase inequity and injustice.

13. Listen, and listen again, and keep listening

In order to embrace profoundly other people’ differences, we try not to tell them what we think they need to know or should do based on assumptions we’ve made about them. Instead we ask and listen, humbly, what they wish to share with us.