What advice would you give a DLINQ intern about to begin their own experience with the Inclusive Design Studio?
Hi, I’m Kayla, and I’ve been working with the Inclusive Design Studio (IDS) since Fall 2021 with Dr. Sarah Lohnes-Watulak and Dr. Amy Collier. The Inclusive Design Studio works with faculty, staff, and students to identify opportunities to design inclusive digital spaces.
In the fall term, I assisted them in promoting the studio through planning and implementing an event called Made for Whom? A Co-Design Jam. This event was for students to learn about co-design through a few activities as well as learn about the Studio. I created the poster and disseminated it around campus to assist with the event.
As a part of my work at the Studio, I also started learning basic inclusive design theories like Behaviorism (def), Cognitivism (def), and Constructivism (def).
Dr. Sarah and Dr. Amy were teaching a class called Inclusive Design and Design Justice in Practice during J-Term (2022). They assigned me miscellaneous work which helped free up time for them so they could focus on other areas of the class. My main responsibility was to connect the online students with the in-person students and class activities. In a nutshell, I was there to ensure they felt seen and heard. One time, I had to transport the online students around the room on my computer so they could look at the in-person students’ artwork and could participate in the activity.
During the Spring term, Dr. Sarah and I decided to put together a showcase of the J-Term students’ final projects. Along with Ife Onuorah, IDS’ recently hired intern, we converted the essays into infographics, printed them using the plotter, and then arranged the exhibit using them. Below are photos of the finished display.
Throughout this experience, I appreciated how I was able to assist Dr. Sarah and Dr. Amy through miscellaneous actions. In particular, I loved how I was able to bridge the gap between the online and in-person students during the J-Term class. On the other hand, I wish we had discussed what I would be assisting with ahead of time. Most of the time, Dr, Sarah assigned tasks to me, which meant that I always had to ask what she wanted help with before I started doing anything. However, if we addressed which aspects of the class I would be responsible for, I could have done a lot more for both of them and would have known what to do work on without having to defer to them every planning meeting. As a result, my advice to anyone interested in working in the Inclusive Design Studio is to clarify with your supervisor what you’ll be responsible for before beginning a project.