DxD Presents @ IxDA’s Interaction 21: Design in Perilous Times

Design in perilous times. Could there be a more apt focus for a conference in February 2021? Little did the Interaction Design Association (IxDA) know just how apt when they landed on the theme of this year’s conference back in late 2019.

IxDA’s annual Interaction Week and international conference, Interaction 21, kicked off on January 31st to a combined audience of over 1,300. It was their first virtual conference and one for the record books, as designers from over forty countries gathered to do a deep dive into the topics of anger, accountability, and action in the industry. The focus of each workshop, presentation, and discussion was to engage in conversations about the dangers and threats of our present day; what got us to where we are; and where to go from here. The hopeful outcome of the week: to inspire solutions that will dramatically change the path forward for design.

And the Diversify by Design (DxD) coalition was there. Not only as part of the conversation, but leading the dialogue. The session was part of a two-part workshop, hosted by DxD partners IxDA and Cumulus Association,  that focused on exploring intersections for Practitioners, Researchers, and Educators. It featured DxD Advisory Council member, and Founder and Creative Director of designExplorr, Jacinda Walker, MFA, accompanied by Andréa Pellegrino and Laila Waggoner of Impact Collaborative, DxD’s managing entity.

The workshop centered on “diversity” in design education and practice, and how it can impact society’s future. Impact Collaborative shared an overview of the DxD coalition framework and priorities, inviting discussion with attendees. 

During the workshop, Jacinda drew from her extensive research and lived expertise, which extends to all three experience buckets the session covered: Practitioners, Researchers, and Educators. Her presentation used her US-based research, Design Journeys, to address the import of history and the systemic barriers to entry—and “leaks” along the pathway to careers in design—that Black and Brown designers face. Addressing the need for comprehensive approaches, she said,

“If we continue to think of diversity as a one-off problem, we’ll never solve it.”

Jacinda provided an overview of how factors, including the lack of accessible data and the systemic issues with demographic data in general, impede the ability of researchers to accurately represent the scope of the challenges — noting that even government agencies like the U.S. Census Bureau and the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics acknowledge that their data doesn’t fully and accurately reflect Black and Latinx populations. She described how the lack of accessibility to the existing data, including in some cases the exorbitant cost of using the data sets, reflect the larger systematic ways in which disproportionate, unequal impacts compound one another. 

In an open conversation, workshop participants were guided through thought experiments, examples, and resources to demonstrate the thematic and structural intersections of the diversity in design challenge for the largely international audience. By the close, attendees gained invaluable insights on how we must work collaboratively to make significant change to the design ecosystem—so that design, in all its forms, will better represent and serve all peoples.

For those not familiar, the Interaction Design Association (IxDA) is a global community committed to improving the human condition by advancing the discipline of interaction design. Since its launch in 2003, IxDA has grown into a global network of more than 120,000 individuals and over 200 local groups, focusing on interaction design issues for the practitioner, no matter their level of experience. 

IxDA’s partnership with DxD illustrates their commitment to having the hard conversations and doing the heavy lifting of changing the design ecosystem—together.