The document discusses flaws in the field of design and proposes alternatives. It argues that design has historically been rooted in capitalism and has been inequitable, extractive, traumatizing, and neocolonial. It provides examples of how design research can psychologically harm participants and primarily benefits designers and institutions. The document calls for design to center healing over harm, minimize extraction of value, disengage from colonial practices, and directly challenge unjust political systems. It asks how design could be practiced in a more critical way to address these issues at their root.

1. Critical Design
Alternatives
Sarah Fathallah
School of Visual Arts, Design for Social Innovation (DSI)
February 2021

2. I sit on the territory of Huichin,part of the
traditional,ancestral,unceded territory of the
Lisjan Ohlone,who are still here,and continue
to live on this land,despite a history of
erasure,forced removal,and genocide of
Indigenous peoples. I recognize that I have
benefited and continue to benefit from the
seizure and occupation of this land.

3. Mercury is the
closest planet to
the Sun
What I practice
in design
What I lament
about design
What I seek
for design to be

5. Research Design
Facilitation Teaching

7. Design is flawed.

12. Design is flawed.
Design as a discipline has a deeply
rooted history in capitalism.

13. Design is...
Inequitable and
extractive
02
Conservative and
technocratic
04
Traumatizing and
triggering
01
Neocolonial and
imperialist
03

14. Design is
triggering and
traumatizing
01

15. Tad Hirsch,Practicing Without a License: Design
Research as Psychotherapy,2020
“Vulnerable participants may experience [design research]
interviews therapeutically when they engage in reflexive activity
about sensitive topics with researchers who employ
psychotherapeutic techniques that encourage disclosure and
reflection, [which presents] ethical concerns and [suggests] the
need for trauma-informed research practices.”

16. RESOURCES
Bessel van der Kolk,The Body Keeps
the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in
the Healing of Trauma,2014.
Connie Burk and Laura van Dernoot Lipsky,
Trauma Stewardship: An Everyday Guide to
Caring for Self While Caring for Others, 2007.
Shawn Ginwright,The Future of Healing:
Shifting From Trauma Informed Care to
Healing Centered Engagement, 2018.
Tad Hirsch,Practicing Without a
License: Design Research as
Psychotherapy,2020.

17. Design is
inequitable and
extractive
02

18. Sasha Costanza-Chock,Design Justice: Community-Led
Practices to Build the Worlds We Need,2020.
“Many design approaches that are supposedly more inclusive,
participatory, and democratic actually serve an extractive function. [...]
In most design processes, the bulk of the benefits end up going to the
professional designers and their institutions. Products, patents,
processes, credit, visibility, fame: the lion’s share goes to the
professional design firms and designers.”

19. RESOURCES
Sasha Costanza-Chock,Design Justice:
Community-Led Practices to Build
the Worlds We Need,2020.
Leslie Allison Brown and Susan Strega,
Research as Resistance: Critical, Indigenous
and Anti-Oppressive Approaches,2005.
Sarah Fathallah,Why Design
Researchers Should Compensate
Participants,2020.
Judy Robertson,When Is
User-Centered Design Selfish?,2012.

20. Design
neocolonial and
imperialist
03

21. Linda Tuhiwai Smith,Decolonizing Methodologies:
Research and Indigenous Peoples,2012.
“Research is one of the ways in which the underlying code of
imperialism and colonialism is both regulated and realized. [...]
The globalization of knowledge and western culture constantly
reaffirms the West’s view of itself as the centre of legitimate
knowledge, the arbiter of what counts as knowledge and the
source of ‘civilized’ knowledge.”

22. RESOURCES
Linda Tuhiwai Smith,Decolonizing
Methodologies: Research and
Indigenous Peoples,2012.
Mariana Mora Bayo,Kuxlejal Politics:
Indigenous Autonomy, Race, and Decolonizing
Research in Zapatista Communities,2017.
Cinnamon L. Janzer and Lauren S.
Weinstein,Social Design and
Neocolonialism,2015.
Anaheed Al-Hardan,Decolonizing
Research on Palestinians: Towards
Critical Epistemologies and Research
Practices,2013.

23. Design is
conservative and
technocratic
04

24. Brooke Staton,Julia Kramer,Pierce Gordon and Lauren Valdez,
From The Technical To The Political: Democratizing
Design Thinking,2016.
“Mainstream design thinking methodologies are limited by their
myopic focus on technological innovation and failure to address
political power dynamics. [...] Design, conceived as a politically
agnostic technical discipline concerned with the (in)efficiencies
of systems, cannot solve problems generated by the larger
political contexts in which it operates.”

25. RESOURCES
Tony Fry and Adam Nocek,Design in
Crisis New Worlds, Philosophies and
Practices,2020.
Ruben Pater,The Politics of Design: A (Not So)
Global Design Manual for Visual
Communication,2016.
Brooke Staton,Julia Kramer,Pierce
Gordon and Lauren Valdez,
From The Technical To The Political:
Democratizing Design Thinking,2016.
Natasha Iskander,Design Thinking Is
Fundamentally Conservative and
Preserves the Status Quo,2018.

27. CRITICAL DESIGN ALTERNATIVES ?
WHAT ARE OUR

28. CRITICAL DESIGN ALTERNATIVES
1. consisting of, or involving criticism.
2. relating to, or being a turning point or important juncture.
crit·i·cal | ˈkri-ti-kəl adjective

29. In practice...
● How might design center healing?
● How might design minimize extraction?
● How might design disengage from coloniality?
● How might design challenge the political systems
at the root of the issues it is meant to address?

30. THANKS!
Feel free to connect:
Twitter: @SFath
Medium: @SFath
IG: @sarahfathallah