Welcomed by design

On this episode of Welcomed by Design, host Lynn Priestley sits down with two Pitt professors, Dr. Victoria Grieve and Dr. Bridget Keown, to talk about gender inclusion. They discuss some gender-based “pain points” for designers to consider, how we live in the internet, and why diversity in the workplace can’t just end with hiring practices.

On this episode of Welcomed by Design, we sit down with Dr. Kelsey Cameron to discuss police body cams, the subjective nature of interpreting body cam footage, and why body cams fail as “perfect witnesses.” And we also talk about the design that goes into body cam operation: policy design affecting their use, how the footage gets handled once recorded, and the physical design of the cameras. This is a conversation that highlights critical nuances often left out of mainstream conversations around body cams, as well as why empathy might not always be what designers need to be seeking to design better.

On this episode of Welcomed by Design, we listen back to Fall 2022’s Queer Horror Week, coordinated by Pitt’s Horror Studies Working Group. Members of our team got to panel with many cool creatives, including the wonderful, BBC award-winning team of Unwell, to talk about accessibility and identity in the world of audio dramas!

In this part 1, we discuss accessible and inclusive production practices, on the “real life” side of things. We talked about everything from fun/snarky transcript comments to balancing the nature of scaring in horror with care in content warnings.

In this part 2, we discuss inclusive world-building, from challenging what gets capital-O Othered and what is normalized, to some of the team’s favorite aspects of the world they’ve created.

On this episode of Welcomed by Design, we sit down with Dr. Bess Williamson, Dr. Elizabeth Guffey, and Dr. Meryl Alper to discuss the past, present, and future of disability design. Our talking points include the “wiggly” nature of access, the way mindsets around accessible design (particularly around Universal Design methodology) have differed/evolved across time and place, and the nuances around disability and visibility. (Our guests’ guiding advice around responsible speculative design and thoughts on the potentials of crip technoscience/design were particular Welcomed by Design team-favorite moments.)