Design Proposal Reflection

1 – How effectively does the purpose/ function of this design proposal connect with the BRB Social Justice Hub’s intended community? Is it empowering and productive?  How so?  What evidence do you have to demonstrate how well this design aligns with the mission of the space?

The purpose/ function of this design proposal connect with the BRB Social Justice Hub’s intended community fairly effectively. The goal is to have exhibition space filled with work from artists and activists who are creating work that promotes social justice. The website will make it clear that the space is specifically for that. This is empowering and productive in the sense that it would be curated and organized by people within this community. The design I am proposing is looking to facilitate this interaction and engagement between the community and the Hub’s available space more easily.

Challenge yourself to center the Hub “community” instead of simply relying on your own instincts.

It will be important to highlight who the Social Justice Hub is for in my prototype in order for the exhibition space to be used meaningfully.

Some questions to consider: How does/ has your identity impacted your engagement in this assignment?  Consider the role your race/ gender/ class/ sexual orientation have played in your research, your design proposal and your engagement with the BRB SJ Hub community.

 Initially and all the way through this process my identity has impacted my engagement in this assignment. In the research stage, it initially got in the way of fully understanding and accepting the definition of the Social Justice Hub and who it was designed for. It was definitely a learning process to not inject my perspective of what the Hub could be and focus on strengthening and supporting what its original purpose and identity. In this stage I also realized the danger of putting things in my own words, and quantifying the value of something that is not quantifiable, through an external perspective in relation to my identity. I am white, female, bisexual, grew up in a low income family house hold, in a family with a long history of struggling with mental illnesses, alcoholism and substance abuse. I do not necessarily have, or have lived through, the same set of socially accepted systems of oppression the hub aims to deconstruct. I now realize that when I originally associated value to the Hub, based primarily on the larger student bodies awareness of its existence, it was damaging and hurtful despite my intentions.

Throughout the process of creating my proposal and planning my intended engagement my identity is still present, in the sense that I would not be making a website design for the submission of exhibition proposals if somehow this project did not inspire me. I do think that part of what you create and what inspires you has to do with your identity. Nevertheless, in this portion of the assignment I am working on questioning the content and engagement can best serve the intended community rather than what I had previously thought it to be.

 

2 – How representative of the BRB SJ Hub community is the target audience you’ve selected?  

Who is being targeted? Why? How?

My targeted audience is representative of the Social Justice Hub’s community because I place to go directly to community meetings and engage with the members of the community directly.

 

3 – How effective are the techniques you’ve chosen to engage your target population?

Was the designer effective in finding their identified target audience?  If not, how else might they go about this?

Planning on going straight to the source, by attending meetings, I do think this will be an effective way to find my identified target. The only tricky part would be whether or not people who are interested in using this design will be present. However, I will not know until I try.

Were the methods used effective in allowing their target audience to engage meaningfully with this design? If not, what could have been done more effectively?  

I believe they will be because I will allow them to interact with the website prototype.

 

4 – Does the documentation of the engagement process effectively communicate the value of this project?  

Did the documentation process distract participants from engaging genuinely?  If so, how could this be done differently?

I was planning on approaching members of the Hub’s community at meetings and getting people who would be interested to talk through using the prototype while, with their permission, I record them and their reactions afterwards. Upon further reflection, some people may not act as genuinely while being recorded. Perhaps if some people feel uncomfortable I can give them the option of writing down their reactions over being recorded.

Are participants able to fully experience this design proposal?  If not, what’s missing, and how might they experience that component?

Yes, they can because the site is interactive and embodies my proposal.

 

5 – Which of the Design Justice framework points have you actively adhered to, and which have you not fulfilled?  

Why is that? How can you fulfill more of these points for this assignment?  For future work?

Points actively adhering to:

  • We prioritize a design’s impact on a community over the intentions of the designer.
  • We use design to dismantle structures that marginalize, dehumanize, subjugate, and oppress others while centralizing voices that are most marginalized by institutional racism, patriarchy, and colonization.
  • We are reimagining the role of a designer as that of a creative facilitator rather than a creative expert.
  • We believe in innate human brilliance. Everyone has the capacity to contribute in unique ways to design processes, and all people are experts in their own experiences.
  • We share design knowledge and demystify technologies.
  • We are finding low-resource, non-extractive solutions that enhance our connection to the earth.

Points that have not been fulfilled:

  • The strongest solutions happen through the process, not in a moment at the end of the process. Thus it is important to us to open up the design process to those who will be most impacted by its outcomes.*

The aspect I feel I misses in this point is, opening up the design process to those who will be most impacted by its outcomes. While I did become informed by the community, consulting people like Carmela and Gail, my process wasn’t as open as it could be in collaborating with those who would be effected by my work. To remedy this, in future works I think making contact with the community that will be impacted as soon as possible and opening up the process to them would be beneficial.

  • We undertake in processes that are transparent and accessible, that are led by the needs of the community, and that result in community ownership of the outcomes.

I believe my process lacks transparency and accessibility. Resonating with the last point, I feel that my process was fairly close in the sense that I was mostly working on my own. In the future, I would aim to consult with people from the community I would be impacting at different check points in the design process.

  • We use design processes not just to address problems linked to various forms of injustice, but to build community, to heal, to experience joy, and to bring our visions of the future to life.

Using the design process as an opportunity to build community was neglected here. I do also think that this relates to the fact that my process was fairly autonomous. In the future, by engaging the community throughout the process it could help bridge gaps in knowledge and reinforce their sense of community.

  • We are not just creating new solutions — we are looking for ways to adapt what is already working in other contexts as well as reviving ancient approaches that have been erased by colonialism and capitalism.

Towards the end of my project Gail told me that there had already been an existing platform for submissions. Not that what I was doing wasn’t worth the process however had I engaged with the community more significantly earlier on this could have been a tool to build off of. In the future, getting to know the existing resources used by the community would be a good step to take.

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