DesignUp 🚀 - Issue #94

This is an issue where I have taken a back-seat and let @soosixty do the curation :-) It was such a big joy when she volunteered to help with putting this terribly erratic newsletter on track. Cadence is important - but the lack of it has helped the unsubscribe rates to stay below a 0.001% - no one is bothered by too few, highly unpredictable newsletters. It's a surprise when what you never expect to turn up, does turn up. One day. Like good old snail mail!

I was delighted at the opportunity to have a fresh voice, a different perspective, and a stash of new goodness... Here's to the collaboration - JD

🔔 This issue is about opening up to more voices in design, being intentionally inclusive about our user-base, and bringing inclusion into our design process, our daily work.

Hello and join us in celebrating a year of living in a pandemic! What did you do? We spent more time sketching, and reflecting on the state of design and the year that was...

“A History of Arab Graphic Design” is a beautiful glimpse into design history from a non-Western country. Steven Heller says "There are many stories to be told about the origins of letters, characters, scripts, as well as posters, advertisements and all other forms of print design." Be sure to check out Part 2 as well!

People are right to be focusing attention on Clubhouse’s meteoric rise. It isn’t simply another iteration of old wine in a new bottle. What's your take?

After a tragic accident left him paralyzed from the chest down, August de los Reyes immediately changed his focus to inclusive design. Though the inclusive design pioneer passed away a few months ago, his passion lives on in the modern Microsoft XBox interface, among others.

Too many in tech and design talk themselves out of writing or speaking about their work because they don’t think they have enough experience. But there’s no such thing as enough.

A humble card game, Android: Netrunner is a uniquely inclusive game. Behind the scenes, the design team was incredibly passionate about diversity and got to make the game the way they wanted, with the implicit message that everyone is welcome at the table.

From the archives

From DesignUp 2017 comes Khoi Vinh's talk on Thinking and Writing about Design. Khoi talks about why design and writing are important for all of us design practitioners. How should you think critically about what you read? How should you think about the implications of your design? It's a great time to revisit this talk!

Resources

Confused about Accessibility and Inclusive Design? Inclusive Design is a process and accessibility is an outcome of the process. Here's a handy infographic.

Take a look at Airbnb's research tool for inclusive design. The framework helps you to be aware of implicit biases and get inputs from people with a range of perspectives, especially those who disagree...

A handy checklist to evaluate the smallest human in your family.

Finally...

A reminder just how connected we all are.

Until next time,