Skip to main content

Designing for Equity

Designing for Equity

COID 337 | Online | 1st 7 Weeks | 3 credits

Welcome to Designing for Equity taught by Angela Taylor and Stacy Parson. Learn about the shifts happening in businesses around the world due to an increasingly diverse population. With growth primarily occurring in non-dominant culture archetypes, learn how to hone unconscious biases to create capacity and creative confidence when working with others. Build competencies when listening to identities at the margins and center those experiences to design for equity.

Course Calendar

WeekLessonsProjects
1Lesson 1: Valuing
Value is the transfer of something important; something meaningful. Learn how what organizations value is shifting. Explore what it is that you want to transfer to the organizations you work with and the world.		Project 1: Brand Articulation
Establish your brand by creating a project deck, practice articulating your brand then explore how to make this design more equitable.
2Lesson 2: Socializing/Impacting
Begin to understand how to design for more inclusion by first exploring and increasing understanding of exclusion.		Project 2: The Cycle of Socialization and Me
Consider your own identity and those that are deprioritized, explore systems of oppression and their histories, and reflect on how those impact your ability to design equitably.
3Lesson 3: Centering
We’ll discuss modern mythology, preferences, and the sharing of power. Learn to listen more deeply, in order to design with more equity and deliver greater value to organizations and the world.		Project 3: Intercultural Development Inventory Assessment (IDI)
Complete the IDI Assessment, use your debrief to further inform your design equitability, and have a conversation with two marginalized individuals.
4Lesson 4: Sensing
Discover frameworks and approaches for sensing realities other than our own, so that we can design products, services, and experiences that work better for more people.		Project 4: Sensing Into the Four Levels of Impact
Choose an event or circumstance at each of the Four Levels of Impact and sense the values, beliefs, and perceptions of the marginalized groups involved.
5Lesson 5: Languaging
Language is the vehicle that conveys inclusion or exclusion. Learn more about how language functions, the importance of how a story is told, and which narratives you amplify in what you design.		Project 5: The Crafting of Stories
Analyze a collection of ad campaigns, identify exclusivities, and explore ways to alter those ad experiences to tell more equitable stories.
6Lesson 6: Integrating
Distill your perspective regarding the intentions you hold as a designer, the impact that you are striving to achieve in the world, and what you believe about your accountability as a designer.		Project 6: Who Am I Becoming?
Reflect upon and integrate the experiences learned from Lessons 1-5 by establishing your own set of equitable design practices and recrafting your brand.
7Lesson 7: Portfolio & Wrap-Up
Learn tips and tricks for creating an effective and professional portfolio and how to present it, build a network, and market yourself to potential employers.		Project 7: Portfolio Design
Want to impress potential employers or provide a case for a promotion? Build a professional portfolio to showcase your new skills.