Antoinette Carroll's Presentation Takeaways

 Antionette Carroll’s presentation Equitable Design is successful for a couple of different reasons. For one she was able to recognize a problem within the field of design, and the content that it produces. The discipline itself is disproportionately skewed demographically, and as a result the outcome of design is often centered around one community while disregarding others. After identifying an overarching problem, she began her work alongside various teams and professionals within the discipline to further identify exact issues and systems that needed redesigning. This concept of “redesign” arose when she determined that: “All systems in our life produce what they are designed to produce”, which means that the problems she identified were actually by design. As a result she determined that if oppression, inequalities, and inequities are designed, they can also be redesigned. Her actual experience and dedication to the work surrounding the issue created further development and insights that strengthened her presentation and provided legitimacy. Another aspect of her presentation that was strong was her examples of personal and secondhand experience. Antoinette was able to present instances where one of her identities was directly impacted by an issue, and systems where she may not be directly affected but was able to share compassion and desire for change. By presenting these moments and defining what it means to be an equitable designer, and design ally she was able to provide a framework for the viewer to utilize when approaching their own decisions and settings. 

If I had to consolidate the successes of her presentation to key elements I would categorize it by: Experience and recognition, questions, tangible and tactical approach building, actual work, and a continued development of knowledge and execution. Like her New Years resolution of “Follow Through” she didn’t just identify an issue and bring awareness to it, but she actually invested herself into real work alongside her peers by creating spaces that consistently sought to confront the problem head on. This is also what struck me as most powerful, because in my personal design experience I have occasionally identified problems and only addressed them with awareness as opposed to developing real tangible solutions. Often times because I failed to remember a concept Antoinette utilized which was redesigning. You don’t always have to design something “new” as often times you can look at the current system in place and rework it to create an unanimous solution. 

Antoinette Carroll had an extremely effective speech because of her first hand experience and dedication to the subject of equitable and inclusive design practices. Carroll had tremendous amounts of both first and secondhand experiences which gave her deeper insights into the problems surrounding the field of design. Her dedication to working around and within the problem, alongside a number of different teams and groups even further solidified her expertise and knowledge. 

The last aspect of her speech that made it incredibly strong, was her continued perseverance towards finding solutions and redesigning the systems in place that don't cater to everyone. Instead of simply bringing awareness to the issue, she actually got her hands dirty and began to work with youth and other professionals to change some of the false and dangerous narratives within the discipline of design.