Designing Safe Spaces & Communities for Women with Danielle Barnes
Why do you run Women Talk Design?
I truly believe that we need more diversity in leadership. While public speaking is not the answer, it’s a really important component. The people whose ideas we hear, and the people we see speaking up, and on stage, are the people we see as leaders. And we need to hear the voices of women and non-binary folks and include them in leadership as well.
What have you learned along the way about creating a service focused on and for women?
Using a design research & feedback process:
I’m not a designer myself, but using a design process is really helpful — especially research. In the early days of building WTD, we spent a lot of time interviewing speakers and conference organizers. We found that actually women were saying no to speaking. We would never have known that without research. Talking to people is really important, talking to a really diverse group of people is really important. Even today, we continue to talk to folks and get feedback to inform what it is that we’re creating. All of our programs have a feedback survey, and I also try to do 1:1s.
Creating a community feel is extremely important:
Community plays a really important role when you feel vulnerable or like an impostor. Public speaking can be terrifying for women, or new speakers. Knowing that you’re not alone is so powerful. The women and nonbinary folks in our community learn so much from one another. We have built community into everything we do, at a programmatic level, and at the organizational level because we really do believe that we make each other stronger.
What advice would you have for someone creating a product, service, or community for women?
Make your research group diverse
We sometimes talk about women as one identity, but there are so many different types of women. A woman’s identity is not that she’s just a woman. She is a woman of color, she’s disabled, she’s a mother...those are really important points to consider because that changes her lived experience.
In what ways do you think Women Talk Design is successful at designing for women than other similar programs?
Our public speaking programs are successful because we use a design-driven approach, because we emphasize community & because we create safe spaces. Just being in the presence of only women and folks of other marginalized genders can often make folks feel safer. We also create guidelines and norms to make sure people are on the same page. The community allows for not just support, but also allows participants to learn from each other.
Can you talk a bit more about how you create that safe space?
It’s really important to us that anyone that participates in our programs agrees to be respectful and supportive. We have a Code of Conduct that lives on our website and we include in every event registration, in all reminder emails, and that we talk about at the beginning of all of our programs. We want everyone to know what behaviors are unacceptable, how to report something that could come up, and what we’ll do about it.
For our programs where folks will be asked to share more openly, we also open with guidelines or norms that everyone can contribute to.
We also want community members to get to know one another in a more intimate setting. Breakout rooms and small group discussions are a big part of a lot of our programs, and we share prompts to encourage people to share more openly about real challenges they might be facing.
What are some ways to successfully design for women?
Don’t think of gender as the only lens when you’re designing for women.
The experience of white women is very different than women of color. As a white woman, I know I have my blind spots. I’m always working to bring in different instructors and speakers that don’t look like me.
When you design for women, you can also design better products and services for men, too.
Sometimes, we include men in our programs too. When we speak of impostor syndrome, it’s usually spoken of in the context of women, but I think it affects women and men. So in starting with the needs of women, you can probably design better for men too.It’s about acknowledging what is and creating solutions for it. One can’t exist without the other
It’s helpful to specifically call things out. Acknowledging that sexism is real, that a woman is not crazy for thinking that sexism is real. When designing for women, design so that the rest of society doesn’t continue to marginalize and treat women differently, but also design for women to be their own advocates. For example, at WTD we’ve heard that there’s this idea that people hate women’s voices — it’s important not to ignore that, to acknowledge it, and say here’s what we can do. Sometimes all you’re doing is talking about the hardships, and not necessarily the solution. Sometimes you are talking about solutions, but not about the hardships – the biases. It’s important to acknowledge both. Just providing a solution without acknowledging the world is imperfect or just complaining without providing a solution doesn’t push progress.Acknowledge that women are unique
If you’re not really talking about all the things that make women unique, you just end up trying to make us like men. Historically, public speaking and leadership trainings have pushed women to act more like men...now I'm hopeful that other programs are thinking about it as how to help people be confidently and uniquely themselves.
How do you wish some of your learnings would translate into other products, services or communities that are designed for humans (but not necessarily with women in mind)?
Research is so important, and who you're talking to in research matters a lot. I think oftentimes especially women and intersectional identities are not considered when people are designing especially in industries like finance and healthcare. Doing research with different groups and identities is really important, as is continuing to get feedback from a diverse group of people.
I’m not a researcher myself, so I don't know what a good sample size is. But, if you speak to one person of a certain “identity”, it’s not enough. You can’t have one person speak for the entire community — that’s tokenism.
Context matters so much too. Consider the context of people’s lives, and how they’re experiencing things. Trying to isolate one usage and one scenario doesn’t work.
About Danielle Barnes
Danielle Barnes is the CEO of Women Talk Design, where she works with hundreds of speakers and event organizers to get a more diverse group of speakers on stage and to inspire more women and nonbinary folks to raise their hands to speak. She also co-founded and co-organizes Austin Design Week, a week-long event celebrating the design community in Austin through free community-hosted talks, workshops, and events. Previously, Danielle worked at the education company General Assembly where she founded and led the Austin campus, launched the San Francisco campus, and championed the first full-time User Experience Design Immersive program. A strong believer in the power of community, Danielle also volunteers with CreativeMornings Oakland, a monthly lecture series for the creative community.