Dreamt
Trauma-Informed Design Reflections #20
When was the last time you dreamt?
I learned that “dreamt” is a valid past tense for the verb dream from Heather Christle’s The Crying Book. In it she writes:
I remember arguing once with a teacher who insisted dreamt was incorrect, dreamed the only proper option. She was wrong, of course, in both philological and moral ways, and ever since I’ve felt a peculiar attachment to the t’s of the past: weep, wept, sleep, slept, leave, left. There’s a finality there, a quiet completion, of which d has never dreamt.
This book also taught me the use of the word despair instead of depression to avoid making everyone uncomfortable.
I spent last week in Berlin. Here are some interesting signs I came across (interpret interesting as you’d like):
Please, pay cash
cards only in emergency
What type of emergency would require a credit card?
People who eat Hummus have better Sex…
What?!
Content warning for the next one:
THIS BAG CONTAINS A BOMB, A GUN, A VERY LARGE KNIFE AND LOADS OF DRUGS.
I sometimes wonder if it would make going through an airport harder or easier. I’m also annoyed by the missing oxford comma.
During my time in Berlin I spent three days in a software development conference. I realized that it has become hard for me to engage with developers. Nowadays, I like talking more about the impact of tech than about making tech.
I also found myself thinking:
What is the role of a developer in building trauma-informed software?
We often see developers existing as black boxes inside organizations. Taking product specs from designers and delivering outputs. And as useful as this is, I believe that a lot of value can come from them acting as allies to designers. Using the power they have to support designers in advocating for what people need.
There is complexity in this idea. Most developer curriculums for example do not include any courses on ethics. Systems of oppression are very present in developer cultures. And, developers are often seen as the ones who don’t care about the “user”.
But perhaps, they are taught not to care. Or that it’s not their job to care.
I dream of worlds where developers take on a more active role in caring for the people who use the software they build.
I know that this blog-post lacks structure. But so do dreams. So that feels fitting.
In my personal journey, I’ve learned that trauma blocks dreaming.
I’ve also learned that dreaming can be healing.
And yet, I know that dreaming isn’t available to everyone.
All this to say that this will be my last blog-post (for a while?).
Writing this blog has been a labor of love. I’ve learned so much, connected with incredible people, and challenged what I thought I knew again and again. I deeply love what has come out of this process. I couldn’t have dreamt of what this blog would end up being, when I started, 20 (!) weeks ago.
At the same time, the process of publishing each week has been extremely hard and exhausting at times. There have been days in which I didn’t sleep in order to finish a blog-post. Working in that way can be both harmful to me and in direct opposition to what I write about. It also makes it really hard to work on other projects.
I have two really exciting projects on trauma-informed design coming up later this year. One I’ve started dreaming of and one I’m slowly starting to work on. I’m really looking forward to sharing them with you and I want to create more space for them to be done well.
I’ll leave with gratitude. If you’ve read that far and if you’ve read any of my past work, I appreciate you more than you can imagine. Thank you.
And with a question:
What are you dreaming of?
