#week no.2

From my democratic workplace's "AH HA!" last post, I started to think about which DEI dimension I wanted to have as the lens I designed from and the group I community for. I'm very lucky to be surrounded by some passionate rainbow people in my stream (my own community as a non-binary, queer person), and they shared research they have found around queer experiences in the workplace and that reminded me how important my community is to me. From this insight, I decided to use a queer-feminist lens as my theoretical framework to inform my analysis of the state of the art and my subsequent prototypes. I collected research in three categories: designing for democracy (in the workplace), queer-feminist perspectives on the workplace and democracy and precedents that have in some way provided a solution to my current iteration of HMW: Empower Rainbow employees in decision making processes through democracy in the workplace?

Update: [25/07/23]

After reflection and some reading, democracy might be too ambitious a topic to design for especially as a single person. It would be an injustice to the values of democracy.

So that kind of leaves me at square one. A peer suggested I look back at what I've done before when I was showing them my portfolio, so this prompted me to think how I could use some previous project as a platform for this one. Later on, my partner reassured my anxieties about this project and not being able to design something that has as much fidelity or impact as I want. They reminded me about my previously developed approach, "Process-Motivated Design" which might be a better focus than the outcome since the limitations on collaborators and resources mean my outcome will fall short of my exceptions.

Above is a image of the exhibition I did for my Process-Motivated Design project.

I revisited what I wrote in Local Making about what I coined as Process-Motivated Design: "A way of designing that does not follow steps to a conclusion but uses designerly ways of thinking and doing to facilitate connection, agency, and widening perspectives" and "We did not role-play a potential user’s experience but actively created our own experience through the design process of experimenting, reflecting and developing ideas."

What if I could utilise this way of doing and translate it into an experience that Rainbow employees can benefit from and find agency in creating their own experience. Non-Rainbow employees can be involved, having co-experiences that allow understanding and empathy that hopefully leads to more inclusion, and equity.

And thus my updated HMW is:

HMW: Go beyond optical allyship initiatives and facilitate meaningful connections and empathy between rainbow and non-rainbow employees.

These images was created with the assistance of DALL·E 2

Kia ora! So today I didn't check the maramataka before class so will do that now... Tamatea-a-Ngana! - low energy, a time to be cautious and not make any decisions. Since I'm finishing off the whakariterite phase, which involves preparation and moving into te rapunga where I explore the infinite potential of my project (#diverging). How the Te rapunga phase is manifesting for me is ideating and expanding my knowledge of my identified areas of interest. In a continuation of last week's post, I did a mind map trying to situate myself within a larger context for which I can design.

I put myself in the middle, which could be ego-centric, but in the context of this project, I'm working alone, so I have to have myself as a starting point. I mapped out 5 dimensions I deemed relevant to the project. My values are important because 1. It is essential to be clear about what motivates my work and decision-making, and 2. Designing in alignment with personal or team values secures integrity. My career ambitions will similarly shape my approach as I am motivated by creating an output I can put on my portfolio. Awareness of my skills and expertise also allows me to acknowledge what I can be confident in and what areas I may have to find people to help me. My interests and positionally intersect, forming who I am as a person and, by extension, who I am as a designer, and when selecting paths to go down, I will keep to what I'm passionate about to achieve the best outcomes and maintain intrinsic motivation. I circled the areas that I thought would align well with my initial HMW (empower graduate designers to design for equity in profit-driven businesses).

Parallel to my personal map I also looked at areas in the Inclusivity Matrix and the Employee lifecycle I could focus on.

Above I identified the areas I wanted to focus on. I discussed this with my mum, listening to her perspective as someone who has worked in a corporate environment all her adult life. She mostly interrogated my assumptions as well as the feasibility of my ideas. Initially I wanted to explore designing the work week and empowering especially people with uteruses to work with their cycle and improve their performance. I realised this wouldn't be possible in many sectors and the only reason I am able to do this during my project is because I have full agency over the timeline beyond end due dates and no real management to report to. Another thought was how can we change what is 'good work' and therefore what gets rewarded. A huge pain point for me was the pay gap not only between dominant and marginalised identities but between workers and employers under capitalism. I started to think outside the traditional scope of DEI and more about systems change, particularly in the tension between equity in business and the systems of exploitation under capitalism which contribute towards inequity.