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Universal Design Guide Playbook

universaldesignguide.com

104 pointsthm19 comments

I’m a bit lost here – what is this? I see a bunch of boxes for activities like getting a group of people to do their favourite stretches in a circle, or throwing paper balls into a bin. What does this have to do with design? I think I’m missing the point. The headline “Supporting the development of inclusive innovations” doesn’t really say anything.

There is a whole industry of design 'experts' (very frequently wearing high constrast colour sneakers, bifocals or both - particularly if matching) who see fit to position themselves as faux authorities on approaches to corporate engineering problems. Often they call themselves corporate innovation consultants. For example https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcTiqQez... https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcS7U4KP...

I know the intent is good (it is!) but this common notion that good design is a toolbox of fun little games really prevents the design function from getting taken more seriously. In the business world at least it ensures our seat at the kid’s table.

In my opinion this is impacted heavily by the average career length in the room. This isn't an age thing, but more of an expertise thing.

Once a person approaches and crosses that 10,000 hour mark, they no longer struggle to articulate their motivations and needs the way that a person at the 2,000 hour mark would.

I find this type of design playbook to be very useful when the average experience in the room is on the lower end. On the upper end of the experience spectrum (30,000+ hours), I've found it tends to turn more into facilitating a group therapy session. There's still room for activities and exercises but I use them sparingly.

I should also mention that I prefer to approach the extreme ends of the experience spectrum in separate engagements.

In the companies I've worked where it was taken seriously it had more of a Human Factors/HCI bent. You would come to them for accessibility and user studies, and stay for the pretty UI and design system.

while i appreciate the comment about games, i think it is worth considering the relationship between creativity and ego, and what happens when you take yourself, and your ideas, too seriously.

john gleese has a great take on creativity which i believe to be a fair criticism of what happens when you take yourself too seriously in business.

What about when you infantilize your employees and implicitly insult their intelligence by having them do exercises designed for 3rd graders? Is that the time to top it off with criticism for them taking themselves too seriously?

The dramatic reaction to doing group activities like stretching being viewed as an "insult" indicates that person has a very low emotional IQ. So yes, that's a great time to get them to stop taking themselves too seriously!

Also, look at you, Jesus, being the arbiter of who's got emotional IQ - the people who follow your exercise routines? People you like? I'm not speaking to you, but to anyone reading this: Anyone like the person I'm responding to, who jumps to assign judgment of some failing on those that don't go along with their program (or implies someone who doesn't go along with the group must be flawed or weak) is a narcissist and a sick control artist, and a bully who's just learned to use fancy language to make you feel bad about your absolutely 100% natural inclination to reject and call HORSESHIT on the metaphysical group crap they're selling. You, pal, just revealed yourself as one such peddler.

Actually, quite the opposite. People with high "EQ" are particularly sensitive to the discomfort invoked in individuals by hamfisted attempts at generating group conformity. But it's wonderful to have your emotional intelligence insulted while your intellect is under assault.

One way you know you're in a cult and being manipulated is that you or someone else is being singled out as an example of someone who's unwilling to adhere to whatever ridiculous stunt they're being asked to perform. The person asking them to do it is usually a psychopath using the oldest trick in the book: The ability to manipulate people by leveraging the innate human need for approval from the group.

And it's always those with emotional intelligence who are singled out for abuse. Of course, the psychopaths running the experiment also have "high EQ" - of a very particular and malevolent sort.

Rating: Cheap trick, poorly executed. 2/5. And not nice.

None of these exercises were designed for third graders

What on earth do they have to do with "design"? All I see is a handbook for middle managers to force employees to submit to debasing rituals.

So this is why my previous company had taken us to a retreat where we tried to brainstorm how to build AGI using post-it notes. We were given 5 minutes and then someone did a crude clustering and picked the biggest cluster.

There's also design centric firms like Airbnb where it does have a seat at the business table. But largely design doesn't get a seat at the table is because the practice hasn't embraced experimentation and science to quantify business outcomes on an ongoing basis. E.g. what is the cost of reducing user complexity in a large system if it's human assisted and you can train individuals to a workflow - some of these have long term business impact e.g. opens up ways for a younger competitor with a better designed product.

Also given that design is largely exposed via the interface it becomes that what works can be easily copied over by a competitor - think Threads vs X.

If we can bring in design to think through on business problems through the consumer adoption and behaviour change lens - it sure will have a much bigger impact than it does today.

Also see some other meta aspects at play - e.g. design is very subjective at the moment and everyone has a choice to what "works for them is good design" .

Your statement assumes product and engineering quantify business outcomes. Every feature, update, code refactor, etc. Always quantified!

Design is as easily copied as anything else. I’m sure you know about business models. Yep—never copied!

Everything is subjective. Every company is doing everything in a manner that “works for them”.

Form follows function. You only need to include that which is necessary to solve the problem defined by your problem definition/statement.

This could have done with better design.

Nowhere it mentions "profit"

Disregarded

Brilliant resource, IMO. There’s a lot of activities, you pick the ones (if any) that suits your requirements. Honestly, if you cannot see the value of brainstorming an idea, and you never done it before, not sure if you fully understand people. These activities can be prepared in a way that are well informed and take more or less time. I tend to see them as good additions if everyone understands the value it brings. What I’ve came to see is that sometimes people disagree, but are proven differently later in the process (at that point, it meant going back and re-think all the initial assumptions).

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