What does designing for diversity and inclusion mean?
Product designers regularly think about diversity and inclusion. After all, humans are at the center of our craft when we identify unique user problems and come up with solutions that are the most effective for the widest range of people.
And yet, there is no shared definition and common application of diversity and inclusion in design, let alone a guiding framework. People consistently bring their own perspectives, informed by their own experiences. Sometimes this is a good thing, but not always. Opinion is a close cousin of bias. So, how can we connect this web of different ideas into a unified understanding that serves to create more diverse and inclusive products and product outcomes?
On the occasion of World Interaction Design Day 2018, I sat down with colleagues to discuss the work we’re doing at Artefact to surface the complexity of diversity and inclusion, why it matters in design, and how we can be better practitioners of it in our engagements with clients and stakeholders as well as the products we shape. Together, we uncovered three broad categories that proved helpful to our understanding and application of diversity and inclusion – let’s call them the textbook definition, the commercial interest, and the bridge to common ground. What’s more, in weaving these different – and sometimes differing – perspectives together, a holistic vision emerged. Here’s how:
The Textbook Definition
Most people are familiar with this understanding of diversity and inclusion. It focuses on including people from different backgrounds, experiences, and abilities during the design process to create more universally relevant and useful products.
Artefact’s Tarot Cards of Tech – a creative set of prompts we made to help designers think about product consequences – features a card called The Forgotten that reminds us to ask whose perspectives are missing when we develop products. It also asks who might be – however unintentionally – excluded or marginalized as a result of our product design if we rely exclusively on our own lived experiences to inform their creation. Instead, the Textbook Definition prompts us to move beyond dominant frames, including our own, to seek out and include a diverse set of perspectives, ideas, and experiences for maximum impact.
“As designers, we talk a lot about maximizing our positive impact in the world. Diverse perspectives and experiences expand our potential for impact. They increase our awareness of opportunities for change. They help to ensure that we identify helpful ideas and implement them in culturally appropriate, relevant ways. As we increasingly sit at the strategic table, our voices are amplified, making it more important than ever that our viewpoints represent all members of our communities.”
“We are currently experiencing the unintended consequences of not having enough diversity in technology and design. As a result, tech is naturally disinclined to consider who is marginalized by their design decisions or understand who they aren’t serving. More diversity would allow our industry to develop the empathy and contextual knowledge needed to understand that the world itself is diverse, and that we need to demographically reflect that world.”
There is a business case for diversity and inclusion. As designers, developers and business owners, we not only want people to buy and use our products and services, but we also want demand for them to sustain in the marketplace. This requires rigor and adaptability. Rigor to constantly change as the market changes, and adaptability to include new consumers as they enter the market. Diversity and inclusion are core business requirements for product resilience as well as success. As the product market expands, so will revenue.
“Design is often about solving a problem for someone else. Whether or not they pick up, use and love our work determines if we were successful, and to be successful, we can’t simply address the capabilities they need. Our solution also has to match the way they think and feel, their motivations and what they care about. We don’t get to decide what is a good fit for the user—they do. Designers must keep our assumptions in check and work inclusively to understand all potential users and their lived experiences.”
Evan Chaney, Senior Software Developer
The Bridge to Common Ground
Diversity and inclusion in design can also help connect and unite user groups and wider society. We see this with social media and other platforms that facilitate community building and the shared economy. If designers aren’t careful, however, there is a danger that the end products can polarize and divide. To mitigate this, it’s essential to broaden our stakeholder lens to uncover alternative perspectives and viewpoints that may be in opposition or simply unfamiliar to our own – be it geographic, socioeconomic, political, religious or otherwise. Then, we must consider the system in which they operate and their convergence points. Without identifying these, we risk further polarizing or marginalizing the users we seek to serve. Overall, diversity and inclusion in design can encourage greater understanding between different user groups, contributing to a better experience for everyone.
“Design is a powerful tool that has both empowered and destroyed communities. It is incomplete without diverse voices. If we are to truly design with empathy and in service to better outcomes, we need a variety of voices, perspectives and experiences at the table. We also need real connections to the communities who are impacted by our work, so we can surface their needs authentically and free from bias.”
Sabella Flagg, Senior UX Designer
Diversity as a journey, not a destination
There is no single definition of diversity and inclusion, but its application to design could not be more important or relevant. The discipline and practice of diversity and inclusion helps ensure we cultivate a wide spectrum of perspectives on our design teams and in user testing groups; design and build products that people find useful enough to actually buy; and shine a light on our blind spots, in design as well as in our day-to-day lives.
It is the responsibility of designers to ensure we do not forget The Forgotten. Let’s reaffirm the many facets of diversity and inclusion in every decision, recommendation, and handoff we make. Diversity and inclusion is as much a mindset as it is an approach, and we can always do better on the journey to creating a more diverse and inclusive world. As we continue this conversation at Artefact, we would love to know – how and why is diversity and inclusion important to you?
Artefact joins Seattle mayor’s new Innovation Advisory Council
Artefact is honored to serve Mayor Durkan and the people of Seattle as a co-chair of the first-ever Innovation Advisory Council (IAC), a new collaboration between the tech sector and local government that aims to harness the power of technology to help solve the city’s most pressing problems. From homelessness to transportation and mobility, the IAC will advise on issues affecting the city as well as assess and propose where data and technology solutions could be of benefit.
“Seattle has always invented the future, and companies like Artefact are essential to the Innovation Advisory Council and its development of technology solutions that will help our city address our most pressing challenges. By utilizing Artefact’s responsible design approach, we will create a better future together,” said Mayor Durkan, who launched the IAC through Executive Order at a press conference in downtown Seattle.
To the role of co-chair, Artefact—the only design firm on the IAC—will contribute our world-class product and systems design thinking to help Mayor Durkan and the City of Seattle reimagine opportunities at the intersection of technology, product innovation, shared value, and social impact.
Our fellow co-chairs include Expedia, Tableau Software, and Technology Access Foundation. Other members of the council include Amazon, Flying Fish, Microsoft, Washington Technology Industry Association, and Zillow Group.
A big thank you to Mayor Durkan for including Artefact in your vision for shaping a better tomorrow. The issues are as urgent as they are complex, but we are eager to shape newfound strategies and solutions that help make a difference for all who call Seattle home.
Focusing on outcomes means identifying the end results we want to achieve through our work – as well as potential negative consequences we should avoid. Say you have a goal of improving the care processes at your organization. The outcome of that goal is to improve people’s health through those care processes. By reframing our work through preferable outcomes, we can think more inclusively and systemically to unlock potential resources and innovation approaches.
Artefact interviewed healthcare leaders about the common challenges they face advancing innovation in their practice, and three ways applying an outcome-focused lens can help.
Uncover new ways to define the ROI of healthcare innovation
The challenge
Whether considering new care systems and programs or how AI can improve emotional health, disruptive innovation efforts inherently explore the unknown. This makes it difficult to predict their results and even harder to know if they will help an organization make money. In the face of questions about potential revenue, innovation teams can struggle to secure buy-in on projects or even justify their existence.
How outcome-focused design can help
Focusing on outcomes enables you to reframe and center conversations on value, rather than money. “It’s hard for organizations to say ‘no’ to families,” Kurt Myers, Innovation Specialist at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital, told us. “When we’re solving for their needs and the needs of staff, it’s a much stronger case for things to be done.”
An outcome-focused approach also helps your team address the right problems. If an executive asks you to, “Figure out how we can use VR in our practice,” you can respond by asking, “What patient and staff challenges do you aim to resolve?” It creates space for your team to measure your impact not just through projected revenue, but other meaningful ways, like whether you reduced nurse burnout or improved the mental well-being of local young adults.
Recognize innovation as a core component of broader strategy
The challenge
It can be hard for organizations to reconcile the “First, do no harm” mentality of healthcare with the perceived risks and negative past experiences of innovation (like adopting electronic documentation). This impedes organizations’ abilities to practice innovation and try new solutions. A survey of 75 healthcare CEOs found that although 86 percent of boards regularly discuss innovation, organizational culture remains the greatest barrier.
How outcome-focused design can help
Organizations are more likely to embrace change if innovation efforts align with their broader strategy. Dr. Kayt Havens, Innovators Network Design Lead at the VA Center for Innovation, notes that, “The Secretary of Veterans Affairs puts out five major initiatives for the year. The Medical Director has their own. We encourage people to address them in projects because they’re more likely to get funded.” Explicitly stating the intended outcome of an innovation project, such as “increasing access to care,” helps stakeholders better relate it to their organization’s efforts.
Considering an organization’s strategy through the lens of potential outcomes also helps to reduce risk. For instance, say a provider wants to “increase access to care.” A potential solution would be to serve more rural communities by increasing its telehealth practice. A potential side effect of telehealth, however, is that it may alienate older populations who are less comfortable with technology. Thinking through the unintended consequences in advance allows the provider to devise plans (for example, provide more educational and personalized support) to prevent them.
Align diverse stakeholders through shared values
The challenge
Collaboration in healthcare represents a paradox. No organization can improve population health on its own – the social determinants and systems of health are too broad and nuanced. That complexity and scale is a barrier to collaboration. Knowledge within organizations is often siloed, domain expertise is hard to transfer, and technology is changing at an increasing rate. Different standards across healthcare systems mean that outsider perspectives that lack context are ineffective.
How outcome-focused design can help
Because preferable outcomes, such as “access to health data,” originate from the shared values of individuals, organizations, and communities, they are a powerful tool for aligning and communicating with diverse, external stakeholders. Governments and policymakers in particular can use outcomes to anchor legislation that fosters collaboration. For instance, if a government sets interoperability standards, all stakeholders will have clear goals to work towards and the motivation (avoiding penalties) to work with others.
Outcomes can also help organizations attract appropriate partners with complementary skillsets. Take Cityblock Health, an organization that believes that “cities should be healthy places to live – for everyone.” The organization’s desired outcome implicates a wide array of stakeholders, ranging from policymakers to technologists, making it a highly effective call to action.
Let outcomes drive innovation
Innovation entails a degree of the unknown. Yet in the long run, the greater risk may lie in failing to evolve. It’s time for the healthcare industry to look beyond individual process optimization to the preferable – and avoidable – outcomes of our practice. Approaching healthcare with an outcome-focused mindset connects stakeholders through shared values and allows you to view innovation through the lens of your organizations’ broader strategies – helping breathe innovation into your practice with purpose and confidence.
In the 1830s, tabloid publisher Benjamin Day lowered the price of his paper to a single penny. It was a dramatic five cent drop for the customer, paid for by advertisements that appeared on the pages of the New York Sun for the first time. This new model meant that the readers of the Sun were no longer the customers, but in fact the product itself. If this sounds familiar, it’s because we are wrestling with the weight of this tradeoff today in the context of social media. What does it mean when the platforms we use to keep up with college friends and cat videos use us back? And how is it that barely anyone truly understands how their data and their web presence is being used?
News that Cambridge Analytica exploited the data of 50 million Facebook users without their awareness is the latest and most shocking example of our data used in damaging ways. But it is by no means singular. There has been a steady drumbeat of stories that reveal the hidden cost of “free” platforms. Uber tracks the data in such detail that it knows people will pay surge pricing if their phone battery is running low. Fitness app Strava inadvertently revealed sensitive military locations by making a marketing campaign from running maps. Just as I was writing this, Under Armour revealed a data breach affected 150 million users of the MyFitnessPal app. Taken together, all have a common lack of transparency around 1) what these organizations know about each and every one of their users, and 2) how much of this knowledge these organizations actually share with their users. In this opaque and secretive system, users are left vulnerable and disempowered to protect their own data.
I’m not arguing against social media platforms, and it’s safe to say they are here to stay. After all, the model has existed since tabloids cost a penny. So where do we go from here? This is my challenge to all designers: It’s time to start designing for transparency rather than delight. Trust is the most important thing that any organization can earn from individuals, and the best way to earn that trust is by being transparent. Let’s use our role as user advocates to help organizations take responsibility by rethinking the ways in which they communicate who, what, where and how data is being used.
To begin, I propose the following five principles for designing for transparency.
1. Explain what data you collect, why you collect it, and how it makes you money.
Online clothing retailer Everlane is a company who has managed to represent — in a simple way — to its customers how it makes money from its products through a transparent pricing structure. We can draw inspiration from this to push beyond the simple understanding of “Your data is used to advertise.” Tech companies collect and scrape enormous amounts of data: location, search results, purchase history, and even text and SMS. We need to be ready to ask ourselves: do we actually need access to a user’s location information? For example, ridesharing services work just fine without your location data, but they present language to customers to make it seem like location services is a requirement in order for the app to work. Data disclosures should be as detailed as the data itself, and we need to stop hiding this information through opaque practices or omission. Make it clear to your user in specific terms. If you can’t explain it or don’t want to, then you probably shouldn’t be doing it.
2. Allow your design to explain your algorithms.
The podcast ‘Reply All’ recently ran an episode entitled ‘Is Facebook Spying On You?’ in which people presented anecdotal evidence about talking about random products and then immediately seeing it as an ad in their Facebook newsfeed, causing them to wonder if the microphone in their phone was being used to listen in on their buying decisions. In short, the Reply All hosts concluded that coincidences in newsfeed ads had more to do with the ways Facebook tracks your movement all over the web through an analytics tool called Facebook Pixel. But the suspicion lingers because there is a lack of understanding for what you see in your feed and why. To address this and build trust, we should design space for people to understand “Why am I seeing this ad?” Advertisers, after all, are able to target everyone from ‘new parents’ to people who like both KitKats and Nike shoes. This goes beyond advertisements as well. For any kind of feed, people should have transparency as to why the algorithm surfaces what they are seeing and why. Give options that will reveal these demographics to your end users, and allow them to weigh in and set options on what the algorithm provides them. Some companies are starting to respond to customers’ algorithm frustration. Pinterest just released a feature in which you can view only posts from people you follow (no “recommendations”!) and in chronological order as well. Hopefully more companies follow suit in empowering their customers to take control of their feed.
3. Allow your customers to opt into data collection, rather than opting out of it.
There’s nothing more powerful than the default. Have you ever downloaded a new app, and have seen the notification of all the things it wants access to—like all your contacts? Did it give you pause, but you went ahead and tapped “Allow” anyway?
Uber abused this in the most egregious way, when, in 2016, its default setting was quietly changed to tracking its users all the time, rather than just when they were using the app. Users were outraged by the change, and Uber had to walk it back less than a year later. Designers need to insist on transparency about users’ privacy settings, and solutions that allow users to opt in, rather than opting out of data collection. This forces our organizations to justify the need for data rather than just collecting it because they can. Zeynep Tufekci, a professor of Information Science at University of North Carolina, notes: “As long as the default is tracking, and as long as the burden is on the user, we’re not going to get anywhere.”
4. Examine and consider how bad actors could use your system. Then prevent it, prepare for it, and be ready to react in real time if it happens.
Designers often seek to change, update or tweak features with the best of intentions and inadvertently expose users to risk, exploitation or abuse because not enough time and resources have been invested in understanding the possible impact of change. In 2017, Twitter quietly removed notifications to users that they’ve been added to lists. After worried users raised issues — I want to know, as a woman, if I’m added to a misogynist troll’s hate-filled list of women they hate — Twitter’s safety team backtracked after only two hours. It’s a reminder that designers need to consider how the worst person you can think of might use not just your platform, but your features, and that includes your privacy settings, notifications (or lack-thereof), and, in a last example, rolled-up location tracking. This is why creating transparency not just about what you’re collecting, but how you will eventually use that data is so important.
5. Media literacy matters. It’s time we prioritized data literacy.
Media literacy matters because it enables people to discern reputable information, seek out sources and make wise decisions about the content they consume. We should apply that same logic and advocate for data literacy, an active form of transparency that educates people on the full truth of data collection so that they can be empowered to make proactive decisions about the information they share. If we implemented the principles outlined above, the result would be a drastic increase in communicating what data is being collected and why, as well as increased control of what people can opt into and how they can manage the algorithms that shape their experiences. Designing for data literacy would represent a significant shift in how data is conveyed today, moving us away from an opaque understanding of the most basic “free platform in exchange for data” transaction that has left so many users feeling distrustful, confused and surprised by the actions of social media platforms.
Sunlight is the best disinfectant
After trusting enormous amounts of their personal information, it’s easy to understand why social media users are starting to question if the deal was worth it when so many services have managed to abuse and break that trust in exchange for revenue. Unless there are changes to the way we communicate data collection, algorithm decisions and advertising models, trust will continue to erode. And that’s where designers can use their skills to help take responsibility for how we are collecting and using people’s data and help restore trust. If what you are doing gives you pause as a customer, you should respond to that feeling. We need to reaffirm our position as user advocates, which has always been the key to being a good designer in technology, to design for transparency and data literacy just as often we design for joy, delight, and engagement.
In the anti-corruption world, there’s a saying that sunlight is the best disinfectant. Let’s let go of the opaque practices that harm our users and add sunlight to our design work.
We recently got the chance to sit down and roll up our sleeves with Splash, an organization dedicated to bringing sustainable sanitation, hygiene education, and clean, safe water to children around the world. Together, we explored ways we could make their drinking and handwashing stations more durable, engaging and usable in settings where the challenges are numerous, from orphanages in China to resource-strapped schools in Ethiopia.
As designers, we relish projects like this because they are rooted in impact and purpose. It’s not about creating the shiniest, sleekest product possible. It’s about understanding the lives of the children who will use these handwashing stations, seeing the world in which they live, and designing solutions that are built to be used and built to last. Designing for social impact requires us to turn challenges and constraints into insights and inspiration, and we’ve found that by drawing on context, harnessing the power of human behavior, and staying humble and curious, we can always find new ways to deliver results for the people who need them most. Splash lives this ethos in the work that they do, and use this mentality to create real impact in the communities they serve around the globe.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BXtLhNYFdLV
Don’t fight the system
A clean water station seems like a simple thing. But there is always a bigger picture at play, and we must consider unique systems, customs, and environmental factors beyond usage. By understanding the larger system in which it works, Splash is an excellent example of an organization that successfully scales its solutions far beyond the individual stations to include things like parent and teacher trainings, school funding, soap drives, and celebrations of global handwashing days. This hybrid of a human-centered design strategy and a systems-level approach moves beyond tackling one problem at one pain point and empowers designers to design for social change.
Keep it simple
Employing simple behavioral economic strategies can be one of the most effective tools in a designer’s arsenal, especially when resources are limited. Splash learned that many of the students they worked with were not accustomed to having regular access to faucets or soap and that employing simple behavioral nudges like positioning mirrors over the basins at child-height increased handwashing rates from 9.4% to 65%. We worked with Splash to develop similar concepts like creating areas on the basins that students could customize with artwork and rotating the sinks 45 degrees so that users faced each other while using the taps because when children can see each other as they wash their hands, they are more likely to use the stations.
Photo credit: Splash
Stay humble and curious
As part of our partnership with Splash, we facilitated a Behavioral Change Summit where members from word-class design firms, non-profits, public health companies, and research institutions were invited to think up ways of improving the drinking and handwashing stations. Situations like these require the acknowledgement that everybody is an expert and nobody is an expert. Remember to listen and consider what you hear, be humble, build off of each other’s unique life experiences and strive to make the people who will use the product the priority in all things. While it may be tempting, you simply can’t parachute into a design problem and employ methods that worked in other situations. In fact, creating a successful innovation sometimes means dropping the pretense of being super innovative all together and starting back at square one.
Photo credit: Splash
At Artefact, we are always grateful to get the chance to think meaningfully with organizations like Splash. It inspires us to dig deeper into the world around us, reflect on how humans can be empowered within larger systems at play, and seek out the right mix of innovation and practicality. Keep an eye on Splash and the amazing work they do—we will keep watching and drawing inspiration from the way they bring their purpose and vision to life for children all around the world.
Twice a year, Artefact employees take 24 hours to team up for the Artefact Hackathon to see what they can create using everything from open source software to pipe cleaners. At the end of the 24 hours, we are always left with a giant mess, leftover pizza, mild sleep deprivation, and many, many awesome ideas.
Our latest Artehack was no different. Each team rose to a unique challenge, resulting in everything from a Roomba built for disaster relief to an AI-enabled confessional for the future. However, two Artehack projects tackled a subject particularly close to us as a company: alleviating homelessness. As part of the Seattle community, Artefact is invested in finding ways to improve the homelessness crisis, such as our partnership with the Seattle Mayor’s Innovation Team to create solutions for homeless youth. These two hackathon projects are just prototypes, but demonstrate that people can use design thinking to solve tangible problems as part of tackling the larger challenge of homelessness.
How might we cut down on food waste and increase food bank donations?
Grocery stores and supermarkets account for 16 billion tons of food waste per year, much of which is perfectly good food cleared off shelves for stocking purposes. Meanwhile, food banks and homeless shelters depend almost entirely on donations, with little way to control what food they receive and when they receive it. One hackathon team wondered: What if food banks could proactively request the kinds of food they need and connect with grocery stores clearing stock?
A pile of foamcore and a handful sensors later, the team created an program that allows food banks to select and receive the kinds of necessities and food they need most. Food banks use an app to select their most needed food items, and the app pushes the request to local grocery stores, who can then place the items in a cart. Once the lid on the cart is closed, sensors within the cart push a notification to the organization that their food is ready for pick-up. The food bank can key in an access code on the cart and receive fast, local, and fresh food donations.
How might we make it easier for people to help the homeless?
Although the goal for many homeless people is long-term access to housing and resources, there is huge demand for necessities and essentials that can make daily life easier and safer. At the same time, we know that many Seattle residents often feel at a loss for how they can make a difference given the size and scope of the homelessness crisis in Seattle. The intersection of these two issues inspired one hackathon team to create The Bene Program, a giving campaign that empowers people to fund tangible items that help the city’s homeless population.
Here’s how The Bene Program would work: pick up a Bene Card at a local retailer and top it up with a pre-paid amount. As you go about your day in the city, you can tap your Bene Card on customized card readers around town that promote the funding of specific programs and essentials. For instance, tapping your Bene Card at the dog park would fund food and care for the pets of homeless people, tapping at the bus stop would help fund transit cards, and tapping your Bene Card in a public restroom would fund hygiene products. At convenience and grocery stores, Bene Card donations would fund essentials and food being placed into the Bene Box, a cabinet accessible for the homeless to take things like food, water, and first aid supplies. Use the companion app and website to check your donation totals and top up your balance, and participating organizations can use the card system to arrange for corporate donor matching. The result would be direct, community-based fundraising that makes it easier for Seattlites to provide resources and essentials for neighbors in need.
Hackathons always leave everyone at Artefact with a few new skills and good inspiration to take into our design work. This hackathon was no different, and we are heartened by the creativity and thoughtfulness each team brought to their challenges. We may not have finished final products, but both the food bank cart and Bene Program prove that all you need for a good idea is some hot glue and great teamwork.
PRISM: Building resilience in the face of serious illness
The transition from childhood to adolescence is filled with uncertainty, new experiences, and change. This is often the period when we learn who we are, who we want to be, and how we fit in with the world and people around us. For many, this time can bring personal growth, but also deep vulnerability. So it is not surprising that facing a serious illness during this life stage poses additional coping challenges. For example, cancer survivors who were diagnosed as adolescents have greater psychological distress than younger or older adult survivors. More than 50% do not pursue adequate cancer-related follow up care. Similarly, the prevalence of depression in adolescents and young adults (AYAs) with Type 1 diabetes is two to three times greater than in in non-diabetic youth. While the specific illness-related challenges may differ, potential strategies to overcome them, such as building up resilience, transcend diagnosis.
Yet until investigators at Seattle Children’s Research Institute set out to develop an intervention to promote resilience, tools to help AYAs build psychological and physical well-being in the face of stress did not exist. Led by Drs. Abby R. Rosenberg and Joyce Yi-Frazier, the Promoting Resilience in Stress Management (PRISM) intervention is designed to help AYAs develop skills in four distinct areas: stress management and mindfulness, goal setting and problem solving, positive re-appraisals of stressors, and meaning-making and benefit-finding. The intervention has been tested in early clinical trials among adolescents and young adults with cancer. Promising results and positive feedback from patients and their parents prompted Drs. Rosenberg and Yi-Frazier and the Seattle Children’s Hospital Digital Health team to partner with Artefact and General UI for the design and development of a digital proof of concept. Their hope is that it will not only replicate the core interactions of the current paper tool, but enable Seattle Children’s to deliver a self-guided experience to a broad set of patients at any time.
“Although PRISM seems successful in our early trial results, we already recognize that its potential is limited. This partnership with Artefact and General UI will generate a version of PRISM that is widely accessible, speaks the language of teens and young adults in a savvy digital platform, and most importantly, meets the needs of patients and families navigating adversity caused by a serious illness,” said Rosenberg.
The PRISM + Artefact Team
The outcomes we hope to achieve with our investment in digitizing PRISM are to:
Increase the impact of the intervention: The digital tool could be delivered to virtually unlimited number of patients, who can use it when they need it the most, regardless of the availability of researchers at the bedside. In addition, the partnership aims to reach teens and their families on personal devices when not at the hospital, to coach and nudge them to continue in their practice. We will explore engagement with the curriculum, in hopes that the digital interface enhances participation.
Accelerate our understanding of the effectiveness of resilience techniques in digital environments: Through focus group discussions and user evaluations, as well as analysis of the longitudinal usage data, we will gain clear understanding of the patient experience and the effectiveness of the different training modules.
Demonstrate that through thoughtful design and outcome focused thinking, technology can augment the impact of the work of researchers, scientists and healthcare providers: In addition, we hope to show that digital interfaces like this expand the impact research-driven hospital interventions can have on patients across the US and beyond.
“We want to bring the research-driven PRISM program to more teens and their families,” said Dr. Wendy Sue Swanson, pediatrician and Chief of Digital Innovation at Seattle Children’s. “The experience of illness during adolescence provides a profound opportunity to nurture lifelong skills in resilience and stress management. With Artefact’s elite design skills, General UI’s architecture and Dr. Rosenberg’s fastidious research, we have a marriage of unique skills that allow us to leverage the PRISM program to reduce suffering not just here in Seattle but for teens and families experiencing stress and illness elsewhere, too. The partnership affords us a chance to reduce suffering at scale and we’re thankful to begin the work and iteration process to understand how to support even more children and their families.”
This latest pro-bono initiative builds on Artefact’s focus on creating meaningful patient-centric solutions. Through rich healthcare experience and deep expertise in behavioral economics and empathy, our goal is address not only the physical aspects of an illness, but the emotional a
Using self-driving cars to roadmap a safer transit system
When most people imagine a safer future involving autonomous vehicles, the thinking is often focused on the capabilities of the cars themselves, varying levels of autonomy, specific safety features, and the passenger experience. However, if we look beyond the car to include the many players and platforms involved in the transportation system as a whole, a more significant opportunity emerges: the chance to design a fully integrated solution that gets better as the network grows.
We examined how a long-term strategy could align multiple layers of devices, products, platforms, and environments to work together over the next 15-20 years and evolve as technology matures, policy advances, and infrastructure keeps pace. To illustrate this holistic approach, we envisioned how a single intersection might look in 2020, 2025, and 2035 to show how a systems-level strategy for autonomous vehicles would lead to safer outcomes for people, business, and society.
2020: Improved reaction
Within a few years, semi-autonomous vehicles will be able drive themselves in stable traffic and intervene if human drivers encounter dangerous situations. At a typical intersection, imagine that a pedestrian named Cassie absentmindedly strolls through a crosswalk during a red light because she’s focused on her phone. Driving along in his semi-autonomous car, Mike doesn’t see Cassie because it’s dark outside. Fortunately, Mike’s car detects Cassie in its path and self-brakes to avoid hitting her. At the same time, the corner streetlight senses Cassie illegally crossing the street. It illuminates the crosswalk more brightly and flashes warning colors to alert oncoming drivers. Cassie notices the warning illumination, looks up and sees Mike’s approaching car, and scurries back onto the sidewalk. In this situation, improved sensing systems and coordinated response are the first step toward an integrated system.
2025: Co-ordinated response
By 2025, autonomous vehicles that can drive themselves in most urban environments will share the road with both semi-autonomous and manual vehicles. While it will take some time to adjust to new driving customs and right-of-way, connectivity and regulation will help to lower the risk of collision. In this scenario, Cassie on her way to happy hour with friends. Having learned nothing from her near miss in 2020, Cassie is about to jaywalk during a red light and doesn’t notice the self-driving car that has turned into her path. Fortunately, the self-driving car is adhering to automatic speed limits and is traveling at a lower legal speed than manual vehicles and has enough time to detect Cassie. The car also pings an alert to Cassie’s phone, which instantly rings and replaces her messaging app with a warning screen. Noticing the warning, Cassie does not walk into the street with oncoming traffic. Through two-way communication, the self-driving car and Cassie’s personal device work in tandem to avert a collision. Here, greater degrees of connectivity between multiple devices and platforms increase the fidelity and performance of the system.
2035: Automated prevention
By 2035, public and private organizations will partner to fundamentally change the way we move about in cities. They will leverage data to reshape our urban environments, including separate zones and traffic rules for autonomous vehicles, pedestrians, and other modes of transportation. This time, Cassie is running late to a meeting and decides to cross a vehicle-only street to get to her destination. The first oncoming car triangulates Cassie’s movements by tracking her personal device. It predicts that she will soon be in its path and immediately stops. To avoid getting rear-ended, the car transmits a warning to all other self-driving cars on the street, directing them to slow down. At the same time, cars that are about to enter the street are re-routed by the city infrastructure to avoid congestion. Cassie eventually crosses the street, but does receive a ticket for her traffic violation and vows to do better in the future. In this phase of development, near-universal connectivity and integrated infrastructure will allow self-driving cars and cities to predict and mitigate potential risks, influencing behavior and creating preferable outcomes.
To enable this future, there will need to be significant alignment and collaboration between corporations, government, and society to ensure that our collective interests are prioritized over any single platform, product or technology. The journey begins now, while the technology is in its formative state, and before today’s decisions become tomorrow’s standards.
For anyone doubting that AI is here, the New York Times recently reported that Carnegie Mellon University plans to create a research center that focuses on the ethics of artificial intelligence. Harvard Business Review started laying the foundation for what it means for management, and CNBC started analyzing promising AI stocks. I made the relatively optimistic case that design in the short term is safe from AI because good design demands creative and social intelligence.
But this short-term positive outlook did not alleviate all of my concerns. This year, my daughter started college, pursuing a degree in interaction design. As I began to explore how AI would affect design, I started wondering what advice I would give my daughter and a generation of future designers to help them not only be relevant, but thrive in the future AI world.
Here is what I think they should expect and be prepared for in 2025.
Everyone will be a designer
Today, most design jobs are defined by creative and social intelligence. These skill sets require empathy, problem framing, creative problem solving, negotiation, and persuasion. The first impact of AI will be that more and more non-designers develop their creativity and social intelligence skills to bolster their employability. In fact, in the Harvard Business Review article I mentioned above, advice #4 to managers is to act more like designers.
The implication for designers is that more than just the traditional creative occupations will be trained to use “design thinking” techniques to do their work. Designers will no longer hold a monopoly (if that were ever true) on being the most “creative” people in the room. To stay competitive, more designers will need additional knowledge and expertise to contribute in multidisciplinary contexts, perhaps leading to increasingly exotic specializations. You can imagine a classroom, where an instructor trained in design thinking is constantly testing new interaction frameworks to improve learning. Or a designer/hospital administrator who is tasked with rethinking the inpatient experience to optimize it for efficiency, ease of use, and better health outcomes. We’re already seeing this trend emerge—the Seattle mayor’s office has created an innovation team to find solutions to Seattle’s most immediate issues and concerns. The team embraces human-centered design as a philosophy, and includes designers and design strategists.
Stanford’s d.school has been developing the creative intelligence of non-traditionally trained designers for over a decade. And new programs like MIT’s Integrated Design and Management program are also emerging. Even medical schools are starting to train future physicians in design thinking. This speaks to design’s broader relevance, but also to a new opportunity for educators across disciplines to include creative intelligence training and human-centered design in their curricula.
Designers as curators, not creators
I already wrote about how tools like Autodesk Dreamcatcher use algorithmic techniques to provide designers with a more abstracted interface for creation. Given sufficient high-level direction, constraints, goals, and a problem to solve, these tools can spit out hundreds of variations of a design, leaving designers to pick their favorites or keep re-mixing them until they get closer to a great design.
The implications of this vary across design disciplines. In architecture, the parametric movement dubbed Parametricism 2.0 demonstrates the potential of technologically enhanced creativity. Its implications are already being explored in the gaming industry, as we design virtual environments and large virtual cities. Just take a look at the game No Man’s Sky—it relies on a procedurally generated deterministic open universe, which includes over 18 quintillion (1.81019) planets. While No Man’s Sky was unsuccessful as a game, it shows the direction that eventually will come to dominate virtual content development—the designer’s role will be to set the goals, parameters, and constraints, and then review and fine-tune the AI-generated designs.
Generative design techniques aren’t especially new, but deep reinforcement learning is a relatively new technique that emerged in the last three to four years and is responsible for much of the recent excitement and progress of AI as a discipline. Google’s DeepMind created an artificial intelligence program called Deep Q, which uses deep reinforcement learning to play Atari games and improve itself over time, eventually acquiring amazing skills like discovering unknown loopholes in the games.
The real breakthrough with DeepMind’s Deep Q, and its successor AlphaGo—the computer program that plays the board game Go—is that the AI doesn’t have any domain knowledge or expertise in game play. And it doesn’t even need someone to codify the rules of how to play. It just has visual input, controls, and an objective of trying to maximize its score. To that extent, games are an ideal test environment for artificial intelligence to learn.
But what about design? That’s where the curator role comes in. In the future, designers will train their AI tools to solve design problems by creating models based on their preferences.
For instance, after years of working in the health care space, Artefact has developed a deep and broad perspective on the key issues in digital health design necessary for changing patient behaviors. I can imagine a time when we will have enough data to enter behavior goals and ask the AI system to design a solution framework that overcomes anticipated issues like confirmation bias and the empathy gap.
The ongoing era of superstar designers
As AI-driven parametric design enables designers to quickly and easily create millions of variations of a design, most designers’ productivity will dramatically increase. Suddenly, we’ll be able to explore massive numbers of alternative directions in a fraction of the time we need today. With increased productivity and better tools, it will be easier for amateur designers to create acceptable—if not exceptional—work, and potentially put price pressure on professional design services.
But while the barriers to learning and mastering the craft will be lower, the design industry’s superstars will most likely remain unaffected. We saw a similar trend in print and graphic design in the 90s. The arrival of desktop publishing software ultimately eliminated the lower end of the market. But it also created broader appreciation for design from everyone, increasing the demand and the differentiation for the very best designers. Until AI is capable of surprising us with completely novel ideas, superstar designers and companies that invest in them will continue to dominate, increasing the value of design brands.
From traditional to virtual designers
A cynic might say that, as a massive number of people lose their jobs to AI-powered automation, they would escape in a virtual reality world, powering a growing demand for virtual worlds, objects, and experiences. Hopefully, we can avoid this dystopian scenario, but as virtual, augmented, and mixed reality explodes, it will become the next frontier of opportunity for design. Challenges like how we interact with each other in virtual reality and how we create and communicate shared experiences are not only unique for this new medium, but require skills such as creative and social intelligence that are hard to outsource to AI.
In addition, virtual worlds may generate new demand for the more traditional design disciplines, such as architecture, interior design, object design, and fashion, as we rush to create virtual worlds.
Designing AI, designing humanity
By framing the argument to show how AI is stealing our design jobs, I’ve perhaps done a disservice to AI’s contributions to the design profession. When humans and computers work together, they can do amazing things that neither could do alone—just take a look at Michael Hansmeyer’s unimaginable shapes. With their millions of facets, these forms cannot be built by a human alone, yet they can redefine architecture.
While this is just one example, there is something undeniably appealing about finding ways to amplify our creativity as individuals and across professions. I can see the potential for a future where our personal AI assistants, armed with a deep understanding of our influences, heroes, and inspirations, constantly critique our work, suggesting ideas and areas of improvement. A world where problem-solving bots help us see a problem from a variety of perspectives, through different frameworks. Where simulated users test things we’ve designed to see how they will perform in a variety of contexts and suggest improvements, before anything is even built. Where A/B testing bots are constantly looking for ways to suggest minor performance optimizations to our design work.
Far from threatening the design occupation, AI offers a huge opportunity for design, especially for those involved in designing the interactions we have with the emerging AI systems. How do we design those AI design tools? How will we design the intelligent services and platforms of our future? How should we design these systems in a way that helps us augment our creativity, our relationships with the world, our humanity?
That is a tall order and an exciting opportunity for us and for the generations to come.
Artefact’s first official hackathon was a whirlwind of coding, prototyping, and plenty of duct taping. In 24 hours, 60 Artefact employees worked around the clock to create 13 different products with one theme: making Artefact the best place to work. Needless to say, it was a huge success and lot of fun (Not to mention a giant mess.)
Some teams took the high-tech approach and hacked together Arduinos, motion sensing cameras, Raspberry Pi, Amazon Alexa, and Slackbots to design office improvements. Team Spicy Pork created The Bar Cam, a connected camera that uses sound and an Amazon Echo Dot to trigger photos and time lapse video of happy hour and then notifies the office of what’s happening in the kitchen via Slack integration. Thanks to Team District 13, our front desk now has a smart piggy bank that senses donations and uses an Amazon Echo Dot to report where contributions will make a difference.
Voice commands were a big theme in many of the projects, so much so during judging, commands to one Alexa often set off several submissions at once!
Other teams kept it analog and old school by blending design solutions with everyday items. The kitchen dishwashers now have a 3D printed sign that indicates whether they should be emptied or filled, and one team created a self-watering garden of mint which will take our mojito game to the next level. Using cardboard, pipes and wood, Team Lucky Lunch created a working slot machine that pairs people off for lunch and even makes the mechanical “click-click-click” sound that makes playing the slot machine so satisfying.
Like the Lucky Lunch submission, many of the projects created during Artehack ’17 focused on helping employees connect with each other, carve out time for new relationships and get to know one another outside of the normal project teams. Using NFC stickers, poker chips and even a few mousetraps, our shuffleboard table has been transformed into a game called Coffee Time that pairs people together for grabbing an afternoon espresso. Near our elevators, Project Lunch Buddy is a set of old airplane seats typically used for travel prototyping that have now been rigged to light up when someone wants to go to lunch. One team even created our own Artefact Slackbot named Artie, who starts threads between random employees and sparks conversations with icebreakers.
After the dust settled and the submissions were judged, one team emerged victorious. Staying true to the prevailing theme of creating connections and building relationships, Jackson, Felix, Kris and Michael created an Alexa-enabled trivia game called ArteFacts. Start the game, and Alexa will ask you trivia questions about the people of Artefact.
Amazing projects aside, the true measure of our first Artefact Hackathon was seeing all of our people band together, get their hands dirty, and apply their passion for design and tech to improving our studio. Based on the amount of fun we had, Artefact is already a pretty exceptional place to work—minimal hacking required.
