Log in or create a free Rosenverse account to watch this video.
Log in Create free account100s of community videos are available to free members. Conference talks are generally available to Gold members.
Fireside Chat: How Design Addresses a World on Fire
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
-
•
Designers have significant power to influence who is heard and included in design processes, impacting social equity.
-
•
The Designers Critical Alphabet helps designers critically engage with social justice issues, especially in less diverse environments.
-
•
The Good Vibes deck offers positive, Global South-inspired design principles like gratitude and optimism to balance critical work.
-
•
Disrupting traditional power hierarchies in organizations can encourage more open and equal participation in design.
-
•
Positionality tools enable clearer awareness of identities present in a space and highlight systemic homogeneity.
-
•
Framing accessibility and equity in terms of business goals or measurable outcomes can help overcome resistance in conservative workplaces.
-
•
Academia serves as an experimental space for developing and sharing best practices that can influence industry over time.
-
•
Marginalized designers often carry extra emotional and cultural labor not recognized by their workplaces.
-
•
True inclusion means co-creating new narratives and spaces rather than simply inviting marginalized people into existing frameworks.
-
•
Global South design perspectives and international collaboration are crucial to decolonizing dominant Western design narratives.
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 to co-create new conversation."
"Designers can help facilitate the breakdown of power structures, even if we get pushback from status quo."
"Empathy is a great goal, but sometimes we have to use the stick and provide checklists for what must be done."
"Positionality wheel helps people see who is really in the room and makes it easier to talk about identity."
"People we think are powerless often actually have a lot more power than we expect."
"When you improve accessibility, you increase engagement and success metrics—those are measurable wins."
"It’s exhausting every day doing extra emotional and cultural labor beyond the design work itself."
"Academia pressures us to share research for academic audiences, but public communication is key to impact."
"Critical design thinking tools still have value if we consciously operate within and disrupt hegemonic spaces."
Or choose a question:
More Videos
"Google Docs is not a web page; it’s a web app that requires handling many keyboard shortcuts and focus management."
Sam ProulxEverything You Ever Wanted to Know About Screen Readers
June 11, 2021
"If you want to avoid time zone confusion, you can switch the conference schedule to your local time on the program page."
Bria AlexanderOpening Remarks
November 17, 2022
"You do not have to go publicly thank the employer who just laid you off. They’ll be fine without it."
Corey Nelson Amy SanteeLayoffs
November 15, 2022
"The problem with the bike rental app wasn’t UX design; it was the enterprise’s inability to distribute bikes to meet user demand."
Milan GuentherA Shared Language for Co-Creating Ambitious Endeavours
June 6, 2023
"It’s not a theme unless you can put your hand over every sticky note and the label explains the story."
Erin May Roberta Dombrowski Laura Oxenfeld Brooke HintonDistributed, Democratized, Decentralized: Finding a Research Model to Support Your Org
March 10, 2022
"Accessibility is now considered not just a moral necessity and a human right but a business good because accessible products are better and easier for everyone to use."
Sam ProulxUnderstanding Screen Readers on Mobile: How And Why to Learn from Native Users
June 6, 2023
"When clients join us in the field and experience research deeply, they often become advocates who come back for more."
Mujtaba HameedThe new horizon of ethnography: using AI to unlock the full potential of in-person research
March 11, 2026
"When something of massive consequence happens that no one predicted, it usually means we have failed to point our imagination in the right direction."
Ilana LipsettAnticipating Risk, Regulating Tech: A Playbook for Ethical Technology Governance
December 10, 2021
"Designing for the average means designing for nobody."
Samuel ProulxFrom Standards to Innovation: Why Inclusive Design Wins
September 10, 2025
