10 Things I Learned at Cincinnati Design Week

A couple of weeks ago, I had the privilege of attending multiple sessions at AIGA’s Cincinnati Design Week. Here’s a quick run down of what I learned:

1. At any given time, at least 50% of your users are experiencing an impairment.

That doesn’t necessarily mean they have a long term disability, as there are actually 3 types of impairments:

Situational: an impairment that is caused by a situation that inhibits you from being able to do what you normally could. For example, not being able to see your phone on a sunny day or carrying groceries that causes limited use of your hands.

Temporary: an impairment that hinders a user for a short stint of time. For example, a broken bone, or dilated eyes after an appointment with the eye doctor.

Permanent: an impairment that will last a lifetime. For example, color blindness, deafness, etc.

Long story short, put yourselves in the shoes of others when designing. Creating accessible designs for the few can still greatly improve the usability of a product for the whole.

2. Failing to address accessibility concerns could result in a lawsuit.

An increasing number of lawsuits have been brought against companies that fail to implement adequate accessibility features on their websites and apps — Some notable cases include National Federation of the Blind v. Target Corp. National Federation of the Blind v. Target Corp. — Wikipedia and Robles v. Domino’s Pizza Robles v. Domino’s Pizza, LLC, №17–55504 (9th Cir. 2019) :: Justia which may soon reach the Supreme Court.

3. When designing anything ask why 5 times.

The first two times you ask the user why they made a particular decision, they will be able to confidently verbalize an answer. The last 3 why’s are usually very personal and get at a deeper feeling that the user is having. A user may not feel comfortable speaking these out loud, so as a designer you may have to infer these why’s using context clues. If you can design for the 3rd why, it will really resonate with the user and they may not even be conscious as to why it does.

4. When pitching to a client, give them a defensible position.

As a designer, you probably know why you made all the choices you made, but does your stakeholder? Make sure to give your client material that they are able to confidently defend in front of their bosses without you being there to explain it.

5. If what you’re saying doesn’t put your client in danger, they won’t pay attention to what you are saying.

Okay, a little more context here… By human nature, the first part of the brain that any information runs through is the reptilian brain. This is the part of the brain that is constantly asking “is this [information] going to kill me?”. If something isn’t going to kill them, the brain is going to ignore it… sooo they likely are going to ignore your client pitch. To get past the reptilian brain’s desire to ignore, you must provide clarity, evoke an emotional response, be novel, and give concrete facts. This will allow the information to move from the listener’s reptilian brain, to their mammalian brain (emotional center) and finally to their neocortex (logic brain).

TLDR: Tap into your psychology knowledge to really help improve your client pitches.

6. During client feedback sessions, ask open-ended but focused questions.

The worst question you could ask is “what do you think?”. This opens the door immediately for negative feedback, even if the client loves everything you presented to them, because they want to appear knowledgeable in front of the group. Instead, ask more directed questions, “I noticed you’re really connecting to option 1. Am I reading that right?” Open-ended, but focused.

7. Embrace your personal brand.

Your personal brand is not what you decide you want it to be. It is how your friends or colleagues would describe you to others. Embrace these attributes, as this is what makes you different. How can your portfolio, resume, etc. start to embody these adjectives?

8. Create a career timeline, and stick to it.

Decide where you want to be in 5 years, 10 years, 20+. If you are not where you had planned, maybe it is time to adjust — ask for more responsibilities, or switch jobs. Don’t settle, keep reaching for your next big thing.

9. Network, but do it wisely.

Networking doesn’t mean going to every single event and trying to shake hands with every single person there. Create some meaningful and memorable connections. The design community is small, so you never know when those will come in handy.

10. Keep on learnin’.

I am so happy to have been able to participate in such engaging sessions at Cincinnati Design Week. I left feeling rejuvenated and inspired coming back to work and put my new knowledge to use.

Big thanks to AIGA Cincinnati, the event sponsors and all of the wonderful speakers I was able to learn from: Sarah Freitag, Julee Peterson, Andrew Peters, Ashton Spann, Megan Richter, Nikki Volpenhein, Mic Riley, Joe Young, Dr. Jim Friedman, Troy Woolery, and Mandy Lehman.

And thanks to Atomic Robot for always supporting a culture of learning.