Laura Kalbag on Colonial Design

Believing we know what's best for others, despite our differing needs, can also result in a patronizing and incorrect solution…

Kalbag is driving at the idea that diversity on your team is very helpful if you want to avoid colonizing your users' behaviors— more perspectives help broaden your understanding of the problem space and bring you to a better solution. I will add to that—properly testing your designs on a regular basis should also help shoo away any remaining hubris. It's a humbling experience watching users fail to understand your designs. But even this thought requires your attitude to be aligned to genuinely want to learn and not turn that embarrasment of failure into scorn towards the people you are supposed to be designing for.

Posted December 19, 2019