My journey to human-centered design
While working at Nature Canada, I took on the challenge of defining urban tree equity. After interviewing key informants in the urban environmental space, I conducted a thematic analysis—what I later recognized as affinity mapping. I used direct interview quotes to capture and tell the story of the communities affected—which in hindsight would make great user personas. As a Policy researcher, I found that my work closely mirrored the role of a User Experience designer.
I came out with one key takeaway: Urban tree equity involves more than just proximity to trees - it involves equitable and responsible governance. We must share power and design policies with marginalized communities and not just for them. Although this concept of co-design is gaining traction, it remains relatively new—and sometimes challenging—in the policy space.
My commitment to equitable qualitative research (through previous projects with Nature Canada, the Organic Council of Ontario, and Fairtrade) led me to explore new frameworks, which is how I discovered human-centered design. Whether designing policies or a user interface, one thing is clear: I want to design for others, but also with others.
This principle has pushed me to go beyond my UX design training, integrating concepts such as community pop-up interviews, behavioural design, & service mapping into my process (my latest case study coming soon!), to place people’s perspectives at the very center of design.
Publications
Structural trends in the tea industry
2017
Things I like doing