Day 3- Design’s Power to Heal and Harm

— Hi, I’m glad to be here to talk about the power of design to heal and harm

— Excited to be with you and preview of 4 themes for talks

• Research is not neutral
• The absence of guardrails creates harm and moral injury
• There is tension between urgency culture and ethical research and doing it with integrity
• Need to recognize power we hold and ability to make ourselves seen and heard

— Research is often framed as objective truth, but UXRs are accepting illusion of neutrality and stuck on moving train

• Research embedded in power, institutions, and historical context and shapes the questions we ask or don’t ask

— Research has been about reinforcing hierarchies, and treating lived experience as supplemental instead of lived truth

• Shaping decision makers and disadvantaging others
• Our language and assumptions dictate whose findings are used

— As researchers, we are actively shaping insights and how they are acted upon, and we need to take responsibility for how research is built and used

• Question of how we influence systems, and reinforce harm

— These are choices we make every single day, and we are not neutral

— Unlike licensed professions, we lack formal guardrails and no governing body making sure that our work doesn’t harm people

• Much of design research applies with no formal oversight and ethical considerations afterthought or decided on case-by-case basis

— This lack of structure leaves us to make decisions on our own

• Without explicit frameworks burden falls on individuals,

— And since no one takes responsibility, there is no method for self-correction or accountability

• Bad results from our research are dismissed, minimized, or labeled as innovation

— Leaves researchers grappling with moral injury

— This doesn’t just hurt our careers, but ruins our trust and institutions

• Leaves people questioning their worth, futures, and sense of purpose

— Moral injury as our insights are being used to disadvantage others, and ethical concerns are dismissed or ignored

• We are not just witnessing harm, but complicit in producing it

— This happens through sanitization of harm i.e. raising concerns about layoffs, and devaluing harm done

• We are told to soften language, and maintain illusion of ethical integrity while maintaining business usual

— Minimizing harm doesn’t erase it, but just makes it easier to ignore

— Moral injury causes researchers to experience loss of purpose in work, in those in power, and systems in general

— We need to reclaim agency and resist structures that perpetuate harm, and have codes of care, for projects that conflict with our values, and ethical research practices, especially when uncomfortable

• Making harm systematically addressed

— Structural failure for collective solutions is to transform it, and conditions that caused it

 

— We need more than good intentions, but commitment to a code of care

• It can’t be an afterthought and must be integrated into methods and decision making processes and organizational cultures to make sure work is equitable and just

— Sometimes justify equity and voices that challenge dominant narrative, and interrogate stories at each stage of process

— Scaling decision by focusing on the following questions

• Who benefits and who is harmed? A researcher should prioritize their agency over institutional convenience or efficiency
• Does it align with values? Discomfort should not be automatically dismissed but act as a signpost for change
• Could I justify decision publicly to those most impacted
• Are there alternatives that center care and justice and are people really included
• What accountability is in place? It should be built into research process

— This can’t be handled on our own

— Urgency culture leads to palatability over truthfulness, and we need to resist making harm more digestible for those in power

• Without structures failures will continue unchecked amid institutional inertia

— This can’t be handled on our own

— Urgency culture leads to palatability over truthfulness, and we need to resist making harm more digestible for those in power

• Without structures failures will continue unchecked amid institutional inertia

— This breaks trust, and people’s lives and we bear the consequences. This prioritizes outputs over relationships, and pushes personas, rather than as people with needs and wants

• Dangerous as those most impacted by rushed decisions are often those most marginalized
• Can’t be rushed without serious consequences

— To contrast, as an ethic rooted in care and reciprocity, research should move with care and building with, not just immediate insights, and long-term impact on all of us

— In conversation with spouse who was military veteran

• Idea of slow is smooth and smooth is fast: Doing things slowly and methodically leads to better results in long run,

— Slowing down is commitment to dignity, trust and care, and allows for more sustainable community approaches

• Challenges systems that prioritize profit and efficiency

— Need to grasp broader systems that shape it

— Example of Berkana institute and Two lLops models, where systems peak and growing ethical concerns and resistance to change, and people within system recognize failures

• Second loop develops as old system starts to falter, and new practices develop and as old system looses credibility
• New system eventually becomes the new norm

— See these in design research

— Transparency and care centered research at crossroads, and institutions clinging to practices will slowly decline, and future practices will emerge overnight and care and dignity can create more just paradigm

 

— Take way to center care and accountability in research and many core principles of trauma responsive research

1. Safety for participants and UXRs
2. Transparency and clear communication
3. Collaboration
4. Empowering how research shapes the future
5. Hope and belief that it will be path for repair and healing

— Know that world shapes it, and validates lived experiences and overlooked injustices and fosters spaces of recognition and mattering

• Not just extracting sources and build with power, responsibility and care

— Will end with a few parting questions

1. What will you do differently in your research practice?
2. What will we do differently collectively?

— Dominant stance in research that are bold with practices that are catalysts of change and consequences of unchecked power are unwelcome

• People have paid the price for price for refusing

— Minimizing harm doesn’t protect people, only institutions. Are we willing to challenge narratives of complicity in harm?

— End with this quote from Howard Zinn

• Responsibility is ours and all of ours

— Thank you

Q&A

1. Should design research like civic tech and public interest design have formal guardrails?
   1. Want to say that short answer is yes, and longer answer to build up guardrails
   2. There is way to systematize without mandates that are watered down over time
      1. Consideration to look at orgs that model this, and share those practices as broader community of civic tech space and those around them
2. What concrete rules or guardrails do you recommend with large organizations?
   1. Advanced form of this easily 50 times, so start with individual practice and might be contributing practicioners to outside projects of main job and way you as IC can shape how to show up in work is having clear understanding of values and what they are and how they change
   2. Clearly illustrate what your scope of practice is and what you can do and capable of doing
      1. And what you cannot do— what you are not skilled in and what you are choosing not to do
      2. Takes time to examine
   3. This gives clarity to show up in work
   4. Going to meso, and macro:
      1. Start with what you can do within your team and working with slightly larger team of maybe 3-5 or 10, and team agreements that can be defined and making sure shared accountability for practices are adhered to — and behaviors we embody on day-to-day basis
      2. Start there and build healthy momentum and beyond