Happy June! It’s been a while since our last post, as we navigated the end of the spring semester and headed into the summer. Here’s a brief roundup of what the Inclusive Design Studio has been up to.

 

Mission Statement

Waaaay back in March, we asked for input on our draft mission statement, with the intent that the feedback would help to shape the final draft (and in that way, help to shape the studio!). I’d like to thank everyone who gave their time and labor to providing thoughtful comments and suggestions. The major points of feedback that we tried to address in the final version of the mission statement included:

  • addressing how what we do will help to mitigate harms experienced by people who typically marginalized by design
  • make it shorter
  • what does DLINQ stand for?
  • what is the thing? A movement? A place?
  • include social class/economic background in definition
  • what is “the” community?  consider “in community with”

Three comments weren’t addressed, or are in progress:

  • labor involved in inclusive design – how to do the work sustainably: we didn’t address this comment primarily because, to be honest, we’re not sure we have a good answer here. We are open to suggestions and guidance!
  • how does DLINQ practice what we preach: This comment reminded us that DLINQ needs to create an accessibility statement for our organization, which is a project that we will take on this summer.
  • give some examples (ex- inclusive design in a course could look like x, y, z): We hope to address this comment through the Inclusive Design Guide for Faculty project described below.

We’ve added the finalized (for now) mission statement to the website. Also, in response to feedback about the organization and clarity of our communication, we also reorganized the website a bit. Now, instead of having one long, scrolling page of information, we have several sub-pages for content.

Intro to Inclusive Design for DLINQ Interns

At the end of May, I led a discussion and activity for the new summer DLINQ Interns, as part of their two-week summer training camp. My goal for the activity was to identify instances of hostile design that they’ve encountered in their everyday lives, generate a working definition of inclusive design, and consider how they might redesign an everyday object to include marginalized users. You can check out the slides from the session if you’re interested.

New Project – Inclusive Design for Learning Guide for Faculty

I’m super excited to share that we’re in the early stages of a new project with the awesome Hannah Davidson (Accessibility Services Assistant and Teaching Lecturer in English at Plymouth State University) and Jess Mitchell (Senior Manager Research + Design at the Inclusive Design Research Centre, OCAD) to create an Inclusive Design for Learning guide for faculty! We envision this as a resource or set of resources with concrete tools and strategies that faculty can use when seeking to create inclusive learning environments and experiences. Stay tuned for updates! In the meantime, though…

Help us design the Inclusive Design guide!

Do you teach in higher ed? If yes, we would love for you to complete a brief survey that will help us to identify areas of focus for the Inclusive Design for Learning guide. Thank you!