Hello Friends!

We are taking a little break for the winter, working up some new offerings for you, and lining up some exciting episodes!

Our first digital offering is almost ready for you!

It's the 5-Step process I've used when facilitating teams to design personalized ways to build more trust, encourage vulnerability and lead with compassion.

We've created a robust, visual guide to help your teams follow those same 5 Steps.

The guide helps you and your team identify resistances and barriers to voicing your own authentic voice, and then build actions and practices to support one another.

Its particularly useful for teams

• grappling with sensitive subjects
• recovering from sudden expansion or contraction
• going through times of change and uncertainty
• or, any teams looking to explicitly build more trust

If you're interested in receiving the FREE download of our robust visual guide '5 steps to Co-design More Trust in Meetings', here are a few ways to get access as soon as it's available:

Follow Stef on LinkedIn, and 'ring the bell' so all my posts enter your feed.

Follow Dig In UX on Instagram

Request the guide by sending a message via our online form and we'll add you to our list of recipients.

Have a wonderful winter, All!

When designing spaces, why is a feminist lens important?

What might egalitarian social spaces look and feel like?

How might museums, parks and cities be designed differently to include the needs of women, caregivers and girls?

Historically, a male-centric perspective has been dominant in the design of spaces - particularly cities - which has led to a series of decisions and standards with long-term consequences on the experiences of others, including women and girls, people with diverse gender expressions, racial and ethnic minority groups, neurodivergent groups and other under-represented people.

In this episode, we talk with Nourhan Bassam - a leader and innovator in the field of Feminist Urban Design. We discuss safety, ease of mobility, how the 'othered' groups may travel through and across spaces differently and more frequently. Impacts on indoor and outdoor museum, public and parks spaces include navigation, orientation, feeling and experiencing ease and safety.

Some of these measures have been discussed and implemented in museum and cultural spaces, but there is still much to learn from applying a feminist lens the designs of museum buildings, museum experiences, public spaces, cultural spaces, and connection experiences like transportation and arrival to your site.

Nourhan hopes by raising awareness about the barriers faced by women and the many othered groups, her work will inspire individuals, communities, and policymakers to take action and create spaces and cities that are safe, inclusive, and empowering for all.

Nourhan LinkedIn

Nourhan's website

Bell Hooks book, Feminism is for Everyone.

Vienna applied gender mainstreaming 30 years ago

Vienna, Aspern neighborhood

Vienna and human-centered thinking

Gendered mobility; The 15 minute city

Barcelona's super block (superilla)

Safer Parks Project:

Safer Parks final report

Safer Parks Project, Dr Anna Barker, Leeds University

Safer Parks merges with Make Spaces for Girls

City of Milan, Sex in the City

Milan Gender Atlas - identify accessibility resources

Leslie Kern book, The Feminist City

Book, Cities and Gender by Helen Jarvis, Jonathan Cloke, Paula Kantor

Geo Chicas project, Las Calles de las Mujeres: Map of streets named after women in cities in Latin America and Spain, to make visible the gap that exists in the representation of female figures in cities.

Safetipin - a social organization working to make public spaces safer and more inclusive for women. They collect data using mobile phone applications.

Nourhan Bassam's book, The Gendered City: How today's cities continue to fail women - expected to be published Dec 2023.

Have questions or topics you'd like us to explore on the podcast? Or a Guest recommendation?

Have a project in mind needing user-, visitor, or community centered research or strategy?

drop us a line with your idea or inqury!

How does close observation lead to empathy and compassion? This week, we're honored to hear from Bonnie Pitman, a national leader in education and the public engagement of art, who has been a thinker and a doer on the bleeding edge of arts education and engagement for 40 years.

After a long career in art museums, Bonnie is now working on ways to cultivate empathy and compassion through viewing art. Her Power of Observation Framework™ was developed in part to guide medical students using a process of close observation leading to a sustainable practice of empathy and compassion for their patients. In this episode, we hear multiple examples of how the Framework may be applied, as well as its uses in museum spaces.

Through this work, Bonnie has also created a daily practice to "Do Something New", which invites the exploration and celebration of making an ordinary day extraordinary while dealing with her own chronic illness.

Links to resources discussed in the episode

1990s watershed report: Excellence and Equity: Education and the Public Dimension of Museums

Book: Igniting the Power of Art

The Power of Observation™ - lecture

The Power of Observation™ - framework

UT Dallas - Center for Brain Health

Edith O'Donnell Institute of Art History at UT Dallas

JAMA - Journal of the American Medical Association, Pharma Art—Abstract Medication in the Work of Beverly Fishman

Sharon Salzberg, Bonnie's teacher for loving kindness meditation

Nasher Museum

Do Something New - Instagram @BonniePitman

How does close observation lead to empathy and compassion? This week, we're honored to hear from Bonnie Pitman, a national leader in education and the public engagement of art, who has been a thinker and a doer on the bleeding edge of arts education and engagement for 40 years.

After a long career in art museums, Bonnie is now working on ways to cultivate empathy and compassion through viewing art. Her Power of Observation Framework™ was developed in part to guide medical students using a process of close observation leading to a sustainable practice of empathy and compassion for patients. In this episode we hear multiple examples of how the Framework may be applied, as well as its uses in museum spaces.

Through this work, Bonnie has also created a daily practice to "Do Something New", which invites the exploration and celebration of making an ordinary day extraordinary while dealing with her own chronic illness.

Links to resources discussed in the episode

1990s watershed report: Excellence and Equity: Education and the Public Dimension of Museums

Book: Igniting the Power of Art

The Power of Observation™ - lecture

The Power of Observation™ - framework

UT Dallas - Center for Brain Health

Edith O'Donnell Institute of Art History at UT Dallas

JAMA - Journal of the American Medical Association, Pharma Art—Abstract Medication in the Work of Beverly Fishman

Sharon Salzberg, Bonnie's teacher for loving kindness meditation

Nasher Museum

Do Something New - Instagram @BonniePitman

What does a trauma-informed digital experience look like? Or, better said, what does it feel like? Why is trauma-informed design particularly important for today's digital experiences?

We hear answers to these questions and more this week from Melissa Eggleston and Carol F Scott, PhD - the women behind Trauma-informedTech.com. Melissa is an expert in user-experience design and research with a focus on inclusive, trauma-informed technology and design. Carol is a social worker and social welfare expert whose training intersects law, social work, psychology, human-computer interaction (HCI), and health informatics.

Melissa and Carol discuss what trauma is - and how broad our understanding of trauma has needed to become. We hear why it's important - particularly today, and particularly with children in mind - to design digital experiences that are trauma-informed.

Most importantly, we learn about how to approach and the steps to take in order to design a trauma-informed digital experience.

Melissa Eggleston LinkedIn

Carol F Scott LinkedIn

Links to resource discussed in episode:

Aquent's Design for Good grant

Birdcall, Melissa's consulting business

Trauma Informed Tech.com, Carol and Melissa's collaboration providing resources, guidance and consulting on trauma-informed digital design

Carol et al's award-winning paper from ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI) on Trauma-Informed Social Media

Recommendation: First, start with the basics of digital design: Usability Principles, Plain Language Principles because if the experience is not easy to use and accessible, it cannot be trauma informed. Next, you must be thinking about mobile - some people are only accessing online resources via mobile, so consider starting your designs for mobile use.

The Six Principles of Trauma-informed Digital Design:

• Safety (physical & emotional),
• Trust and Transparency,
• Collaboration & Mutuality,
• Peer Support,
• Empowerment voice & choice,
• Cultural, historical and gender issues (aka, Intersectionality)

Paper from Michigan State University on trauma-informed Website Heuristics

Equal Justice Initiative and Legacy Museum

SAMHSA - Six Principles of Trauma-Informed Care

CDC - 6 Guiding Principles To A Trauma-Informed Approach

University at Buffalo School of Social Work Institute on Trauma and Trauma-Informed Care they help organizations become trauma informed.

Look at the Learning Area on Melissa & Carol's traumainformedtech.com website to find more books, videos and resources.

Book on 'design gone wrong' Design for Real Life.

Bassetti Architects - Carol says they are doing a good job! Download Bassetti's workbook here.

You can also listen to our episode on Trauma-Informed Spaces with Lorne McConachie from Bassetti Architects on Spotify. It was our first episode!

Connect with us:

Have questions or topics you'd like us to explore on the podcast? Or a recommendation of an expert to interview? Feel free to contact me via the Dig In UX website or my LinkedIn page.

Need help with a user-, visitor- or community-centered project, evaluation or experience design strategy?

• • Head over to digin-ux.com for info on human and community-centered strategies for your mission-driven institution

  • Or, contact us via the Dig In UX website about your project or collaboration you've got in mind, or just to say hello!

We know we all have biases - it's our brain's way of speeding up decision-making and keeping us safe. We also know these quick decisions and snap judgments often don't reflect today's real world challenges and dangers.

Destigmatizing bias is an important step toward acknowledging and then interrupting bias, but how might that work, exactly? And how might we help our report-tos, leaders and teammates sit with, challenge and unravel their own biases so we might all be better designers and create better, more equitable experiences for our visitors and audiences.

This week we sat down with Dr Nicole Marie Ortiz, EdD, with Denver Zoo to learn more about how her team has transformed recent learnings about bias into regular practices to embrace and interrupt it. Nicole tells us what role 'small moments' plays when seeking to create a culture of bias interruption, and how you might develop similar practices with your team, institution or organization.

Nicole Ortiz LinkedIn

Denver Zoo LinkedIn

Links to resources discussed in episode

Brofenbrenner's Ecological Model

Book: Community by Peter Block

Adreinne Marie Brown talks about 'small is all'. This can be found in a two part series on YouTube: Part 1, Part 2

Three I's: Introspection, Interdependence and Intentionality (no link for this one, these are part of the internal practice at Denver Zoo)

• Am I holding space for introspection for myself and for others?

• Am I seeing that this work is deeply interdependent and I am connected to other people..and we can help each other see the world from different viewpoints.

• What will I do purposefully? What intentional steps will I take to try and do something different - to try and hold another thought? And how might that other thought impact how I might behave?

Karpman's Drama Triangle - (not Cartmans Drama Triangle!)

& the Circle of Reciprocity, and the line between the two is the Line of Regulation

Deb Dana's work on polyvagal theory & how to become regulated

Marianne Williamson - when we let our own light shine, we unconsciously invite others to do the same.

Book: Love & Rage by Lama Rod Owens

Book: The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel van der Kolk

Podcast: 10% Happier

Connect with us

Have questions or topics you'd like us to explore on the podcast?

Or, want to discuss a user-centered project, evaluation or experience design strategy?

Please drop us a line via our website to get in touch!

I ran across the concept of Feminine Exhibit Design when doing some post-conference research - and it perked my ears right up! What is feminine exhibit design? And, why is it important? Margaret Middleton has been focusing on these questions for several years now, and spent a little time with me to discuss.

Margaret is a thought leader in the inclusive design space, designer of playful, enriching learning experiences, and speaker and consultant advocating for inclusive museum practices.

In this week's episode, Margaret shares their thoughts on why Feminine Design principles are a critical aspect for inclusive design and how and when to use them. We discuss how acknowledging and resisting an andro-centric perspective is important in design work, and how difficult that can be considering the complexities of femininity. We also discuss what fem-phobia is and how it may present itself in our design work.

Margaret tells us how and when a focus on feminine design emerged from their work and how their thought exercise on this topic has developed since then - including how Cute came to be the 7th element in the emergent Feminine Exhibition Design structure.

Find Margaret on LinkedIn

Find Margaret on their website

Links to resources discussed in episode:

Margaret's Family Inclusive Language Chart

Book: Feminist Designer

Book: Storytelling in Museums

Book: Welcoming Young Children into the Museum

Book: The Inclusive Museum Leader

Article: Feminine Exhibition Design - describing 6 elements of Feminine Exhibition Design, before the 7th - Cute - was added

Reader Guide for Feminine Exhibition Design article

Gaston Bachelard - 'the curve is inhabited geometry'

Barbie gets with the program - exhibit Margaret designed, and inspired their focus on feminine design

Alok Vaid-Menon asks 'What feminine part of yourself did you have to destroy to be part of this world?'

Discovery Museum, Acton Massachusetts - Teddy Bear diner

Exhibit: Gender Bending Fashion - Museum Fine Arts Boston

EDGE - Exhibit Design for Girls Engagement research from Exploratorium

Guide from EDGE - recommended qualities regarding what works for girls in a science museum setting

Rhea Ashley Hoskin's work on femininity and fem-phobia

Sapna Cheryan's work on the concept of ambient belonging - she focuses on learning and educational spaces

Book: Extra Bold feminist-inclusive, anti-racist, nonbinary field guide for graphic designers

Connect with us:

• Have questions or topics you'd like us to explore on the podcast? Or a recommendation of an expert to interview? Feel free to contact me via my LinkedIn page

• Need help with a user-, visitor- or community-centered project, evaluation or experience design strategy?

• Head over to digin-ux.com for info on human and community-centered strategies for your mission-driven institution

• Or, contact us via the Dig In UX website about your project or collaboration you've got in mind, or just to say hello!

- Summer Break Announcement -

I hope everyone is enjoying their summer, taking things a bit slower, getting rest and having some fun!

Here at Dig In UX and MuseumX podcast - we are wrapping up a few large consulting projects, and I'm trying to take things a bit more slowly this summer, so we are moving into a little podcast break.

We'll be spending some of this break time this time lining up episodes with cool new guests! Later this summer you can look forward to episodes that dig into topics such as trauma-informed digital design, inspiring creativity, feminine design, facilitating hard conversations and several others in the works.

As always, please be in touch about topics you're interested in hearing on the show, AND if you are an expert in programming, facilitating or designing experiences or leading teams that do this work, and think you might have a good story to share with other experience designers please feel free to reach out to me to see if you should be my next guest!

Happy Summer!

PART 2 of 2

This week - the tables are turned! If you wanted to learn a bit more about me - here's your chance. One of my favorite people, who is also a former neighbor and former museum colleague, interviews me! Nicole has the curiosity bug as badly as I do, so she's one of my favorite people to explore ideas, make connections and generally chat with. She's awesome.

In the episode, you'll first hear Nicole tell the silly and fun story of how we met and became friends - it's pretty good. Vintage Stef stuff. We then talk about my professional path from anthropology to digital UX research and design, and then switching to non profit spaces, museum evaluation and being a business owner.

You'll hear about some of my favorite projects, why I became a digital nomad for almost 2 years, and what I mean by heart-centered design and who are heart-centered designers. (Spoiler - it's probably you!)

Nicole Forbes LinkedIn page

Links to resources discussed in episode:

Elevator sign that Nicole & Ted have kept for years!

Book: Contextual Design, Beyer & Holtzblatt my favorite text book I recommend to guide researchers and designers understand the deep How-Tos of this potentially very subjective design process.

General Motors 'Journey' project paper for the Second International Conference on Automotive User Interfaces and Interactive Vehicular Applications (the gal sitting on the floor in Image 3 is yours truly)

Public announcement of the Shedd Aquairum $500M Experience Master Plan project

Connect with us:

• Have questions or topics you'd like us to explore on the podcast? Or a recommendation of an expert to interview? Please drop us a line at [email protected] with your idea!

• Need help with a user-centered project, evaluation or experience design strategy?

• Head over to digin-ux.com for info on human and community-centered strategies for your mission-driven institution,

• Or connect with us at [email protected] about your project or collaboration you've got in mind

This week - the tables are turned! If you wanted to learn a bit more about me - here's your chance. One of my favorite people, who is also a former neighbor and former museum colleague, interviews me! Nicole has the curiosity bug as badly as I do, so she's one of my favorite people to explore ideas, make connections and generally chat with. She's awesome.

In the episode, you'll first hear Nicole tell the silly and fun story of how we met and became friends - it's pretty good. Vintage Stef stuff. We then talk about my professional path from anthropology to digital UX research and design, and then switching to non profit spaces, museum evaluation and being a business owner.

You'll hear about some of my favorite projects, why I became a digital nomad for almost 2 years, and what I mean by heart-centered design and who are heart-centered designers. (Spoiler - it's probably you!)

Nicole Forbes LinkedIn page

Links to resources discussed in episode:

Elevator sign that Nicole & Ted have kept for years!

Book: Contextual Design, Beyer & Holtzblatt my favorite text book I recommend to guide researchers and designers understand the deep How-Tos of this potentially very subjective design process.

General Motors 'Journey' project paper for the Second International Conference on Automotive User Interfaces and Interactive Vehicular Applications (the gal sitting on the floor in Image 3 is yours truly)

Public announcement of the Shedd Aquairum $500M Experience Master Plan project

Connect with us:

• Have questions or topics you'd like us to explore on the podcast? Or a recommendation of an expert to interview? Please drop us a line at [email protected] with your idea!

• Need help with a user-centered project, evaluation or experience design strategy?

• Head over to digin-ux.com for info on human and community-centered strategies for your mission-driven institution,

• Or connect with us at [email protected] about your project or collaboration you've got in mind