SC: Human-centered design is a problem-solving process grounded in empathy and iteration. It’s also a powerful framework for creating alignment among people from diverse backgrounds. Because of this, every project begins with intense listening and observation. Beyond active listening cues such as nodding our heads, we’ll come back with visuals to make the findings tangible. And if the results don’t feel like we got it quite right, we’re committed to listening all over again.

SC: Talking can often be a recipe for miscommunication. But by making something concrete—even with a series of Post-its or a sketch on a table—it’s no longer mine or yours, it’s ours. If we can make the intangible tangible, folks can have productive conversations about what’s possible. In fact meaningful feedback is much more attainable when you’ve made “stuff” that others can understand and respond to. Designers are practiced in thinking about concrete solutions and bringing lots of them to the table, because we’re asked to do that all the time.

“I think designers are uniquely practiced in dealing with ambiguity and making the intangible tangible.”

—Sara Cantor

SC: A lot of time, the communities we work with have been let down over and over. So, in many cases, we are starting from a trust deficit. Institutions in this country tend to honor learned expertise versus lived experience. Our job is to elevate lived experience to the same plane as learned expertise. We don’t want to just learn from you as a beneficiary of the work. We want you to help make the decisions that will be most valuable to you. We approach our meetings and convenings with the goal of leveling the playing field of power.

When we present visuals that synthesize the feedback, it’s key to show we didn’t just listen to one person in the room. And that we’re not just reflecting the perceived content experts. Our goal is to map ways something can move forward that represents the multitude of voices.

“Good design is often what makes a product or program successful. Not because of how it looks, but because it has features or touch points that were cocreated with the end user.” —Sara Cantor

The first part of this Q&A is based on conversations with Mike Morrison, a PhD candidate in Industrial-Organizational Psychology at Michigan State University, and Derek Crowe, a PhD candidate in biomedical genetics at the University of Rochester.

MM: II was a website designer/developer for 10 years before starting my PhD. Sadly what I observed is that science has the most tragically and disastrously bad interfaces I’ve ever seen, with prolonged human suffering as a consequence. Whether it’s looking at more options for open-source publishing, creating alternatives to the typical hand-me-down science poster templates, or adapting social media tools, we have to find ways to accelerate knowledge dissemination.

DC: In addition to my early background in biomedical engineering, I had a background in web design, as well as letterpress printing. Because I’m passionate about “sci-com,” in addition to my own lab research, I developed a course on visual communications for scientists at the university. You have to help people think about using tools such as a grid, visual hierarchy, white space, and typography to increase readability. That said, a well-crafted takeaway message is the most critical place to start.

“Better tools make it easier to get to better insights. This will make scientists’ work more fulfilling. And if we make science more user friendly, we’ll also make it easier for the rest of the world to fall in love with science.” —Mike Morrison

The second part of this Q&A is with Karen Cheng, professor of visual communications design at the University of Washington.

KC: While I got my bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering, I was always drawn to design. Now, as a design professor and researcher, I’ve found ways to bridge those two areas of interest. In a recent project, I collaborated with an engineering colleague to launch the Design Help Desk, a tutoring center where science students, faculty, and staff can work with design students to improve their visuals for presentation and publication. Consistently positive results, documented in a study funded by the National Science Foundation, have helped garner ongoing university support for this program.

KC: My colleagues and I recently conducted a study on the impact of visual design when scientists incorporated design best practices in published papers. We focused on the graphical abstract (GA), an overview figure (illustration) designed to attract potential readers and visually summarize what the research paper is about. Figures are often the first part of a scientific paper reviewed by the editor, and if the paper is accepted, often the first part examined by a researcher’s peers. Results of the study showed redesigned GAs consistently improved readers’ understanding of the paper, and enhanced the perception of the authors’ intelligence, and the rigor of the science. This is just one example of how design can improve a researcher’s ability to share work.

CG: We consistently partner with designers who are hoping to create tools to address social justice issues. And we’re purposeful about getting the collaborations off to a good start. As part of the original grant process, community groups are asked to define their key audiences, communication challenges, and intended outcomes.

We then work with the community groups, and their constituents, to confirm we’ve heard things correctly, document everything in a “scoping document.” We then help shape the key information that will need to be included. We also facilitate the conversations between the design team and the community organizers so everyone can agree how they’re going to work together. Everything needs to be in support of the community organization’s goals.

CG: We ask designers to constantly monitor their own unconscious biases. We’ve had experiences where a designer might propose a color palette or an illustration style that constituents find subtly inappropriate or disrespectful. Creating “space” for conversations about this is so critical to the ultimate success of the project.

“We’re always thinking about best practices for learning. And we know people can’t learn when they’re scared or worried.”

—Christine Gaspar

“We’re helping people build cognitive maps. Research shows that when people can remember key concepts, it helps them recall subdetails as well.”

—Christine Gaspar

CG: We ask designers to share visual references early, so constituents can give their input about tone before the actual design process even begins. Working with constituents from the beginning allows us to evaluate the effectiveness of the content and the visuals at every stage in the process.

CG: It’s so important to empower communities to help shape public policy conversations that are critical to their day-to-day lives. And that’s hard for anyone, let alone someone who might have a variety of barriers to feeling confident about speaking up. Our job is break the information down in a way that helps people feel they understand the issues so they’re comfortable participating.

CJ: After my own brush with death, I came to understand much more about a phenomenon known as “cognitive paralysis,” or freezing in the face of danger. I was compelled to see if smart design could help people prepare for emergencies, when split-second decisions are a matter of life and death. This propelled me to go to graduate school in the U.K., where there is a long history of employing design in public education campaigns.

CJ: As part of my thesis for graduate school, I worked with a small coastal city in California to develop communication tools to help citizens plan for a possible tsunami. This caused me to take a deep dive into mapmaking, and an equally deep dive into audience research so I could evaluate how to make the tools as effective as possible. Since then I’ve worked with a dozen cities and counties to create toolkits to plan for floods, fires, earthquakes, and other disasters. I also work with the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) here in the United States.

“It’s imperative to share this kind of information with people over and over in order to create ‘muscle memory.’ ”

—Claudine Jaenichen

“I’m exploring how proprietary software and AI might help to make the work more scalable for communities.”

—Claudine Jaenichen

CJ: Testing lets us observe cognitive processing and it provides evidence for how information is best remembered. We know processing is severely challenged when someone is under duress, so most importantly, testing has shown us how critical it is to deliver information consistently and repetitively before an emergency happens. Airline evacuation instructions are one of the very best examples for how to do it. There’s a card with instructions delivered in words and pictures tucked into every seat. A member of the crew reads it aloud and might even pantomime it. Usually there’s an accompanying video. And they make sure to repeat all of this on every single flight. They’ve built in redundancy to make it part of muscle memory.

This Q&A reflects conversations with graphic facilitators Anthony Weeks and Lin Wilson.

The goal is to take something very complicated and abstract and give it form. Visual metaphors act as anchors to help people retain the conversation. This is particularly effective when so many people are visual learners. Capturing the key points in an ongoing dialogue helps people feel heard. You can stand back and see where there’s agreement and where there’s a need to drill down to get more clarity. It ultimately helps people make decisions.

There’s a methodology, and those of us who have been in the field are training others. It requires quick cognitive processing to get to the real-time synthesis and distillation. You have to train your brain to filter out the irrelevant filler information and listen for the nuggets that really matter. A graphic recorder focuses on capturing the information, but a graphic facilitator also runs the meeting and facilitates the conversation. Some people are good at working with people and distilling ideas, but they may only be able to draw stick figures. That can still be very effective. At the other end of the spectrum, some people are brilliant designers or illustrators, but not good listeners. In the end, the process has to be more important than the final product. The goal is to help teams make critical decisions.

People take pictures as a record of the immediate experience, so they can share it with their teams. Often the pieces will be incorporated in follow-up reports or used as a catalyst for teams working on more detailed roadmaps for implementation. Sometimes we’re asked to further refine the visuals so they can be incorporated in marketing tools for external audiences. If you’re going to inspire change, you need to be able to tell a concise but compelling story.

“More and more, clients are asking to be trained in this work and in the basics of visual thinking. They now realize it’s such a powerful tool.” —Lin Wilson

The work below is from scientific illustrator Alex Cagan.

JC: Millions of patients visit accident and emergency (A&E) departments in the U.K. every year. Patient frustration was often difficult to manage, so aggressive behavior and violence had become an increasingly pervasive problem. The resulting costs in terms of staff absences, lack of productivity, and additional security had been steadily growing. The Design Council (a nonprofit in the U.K. that champions design as a resource for solving problems in the public sector) cofunded the project to see if design could help mitigate the problems.

JC: The initial in-depth ethnographic research (interviews and careful observation) revealed two clear patterns. First there were often common characteristics in those most inclined to act out—whether it was intoxication or drug abuse. But the biggest commonality of all was the rampant frustration found in these environments, where people were already highly emotional. Our team set out to carefully map the visitor journey and identify the most common triggers.

“Working with a public entity meant it was imperative to make everything affordable, easy to implement and maintain.”

—Jack Cheatle

“The recommendations are now being implemented by teams in other locations who use it to reimagine how the entire operation might be improved.”

—Jack Cheatle

JC: One of the key findings was patients’ feeling of disorientation aggravated their levels of frustration about the process. Based on recurring feedback, we recommended creating a large-scale graphic that would help visitors get oriented at a glance. We recommended additional graphics patients could reference along the journey in order to further manage expectations. Copywriters helped us consistently use clear, simple messaging. We also worked with staff to enhance communications practices.

JC: Because the NHS is a public entity, it was critical to make everything affordable, easy to implement and maintain. We also created toolkits other sites could download and implement. An independent evaluation, conducted after the first two pilots, found 88 percent of patients felt the new tools clarified the process. Even more significantly, there was a 50 percent reduction in aggressive behavior. The tools are now being implemented at sites across the country.