E10: Trauma-informed Digital Design with Melissa Eggleston and Carol F Scott, PhD

MuseumX: Designing Experiences for Good

What does a trauma-informed digital experience look like? Or, better said, what does it feel like? Why is trauma-informed design particularly important for today’s digital experiences?

We hear answers to these questions and more this week from Melissa Eggleston and Carol F Scott, PhD - the women behind Trauma-informedTech.com. Melissa is an expert in user-experience design and research with a focus on inclusive, trauma-informed technology and design. Carol is a social worker and social welfare expert whose training intersects law, social work, psychology, human-computer interaction (HCI), and health informatics.

Melissa and Carol discuss what trauma is - and how broad our understanding of trauma has needed to become. We hear why it’s important - particularly today, and particularly with children in mind - to design digital experiences that are trauma-informed.

Most importantly, we learn about how to approach and the steps to take in order to design a trauma-informed digital experience.

Melissa Eggleston LinkedIn

Carol F Scott LinkedIn

Links to resource discussed in episode:

Aquent’s Design for Good grant

Birdcall, Melissa’s consulting business

Trauma Informed Tech.com, Carol and Melissa’s collaboration providing resources, guidance and consulting on trauma-informed digital design

Carol et al’s award-winning paper from ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI) on Trauma-Informed Social Media

Recommendation: First, start with the basics of digital design: Usability Principles, Plain Language Principles because if the experience is not easy to use and accessible, it cannot be trauma informed. Next, you must be thinking about mobile - some people are only accessing online resources via mobile, so consider starting your designs for mobile use.

The Six Principles of Trauma-informed Digital Design:

• Safety (physical & emotional),
• Trust and Transparency,
• Collaboration & Mutuality,
• Peer Support,
• Empowerment voice & choice,
• Cultural, historical and gender issues (aka, Intersectionality)

Paper from Michigan State University on trauma-informed Website Heuristics

Equal Justice Initiative and Legacy Museum

SAMHSA - Six Principles of Trauma-Informed Care

CDC - 6 Guiding Principles To A Trauma-Informed Approach

University at Buffalo School of Social Work Institute on Trauma and Trauma-Informed Care they help organizations become trauma informed.

Look at the Learning Area on Melissa & Carol’s traumainformedtech.com website to find more books, videos and resources.

Book on ‘design gone wrong’ Design for Real Life.

Bassetti Architects - Carol says they are doing a good job! Download Bassetti’s workbook here.

You can also listen to our episode on Trauma-Informed Spaces with Lorne McConachie from Bassetti Architects on Spotify. It was our first episode!

Connect with us:

Have questions or topics you’d like us to explore on the podcast? Or a recommendation of an expert to interview? Feel free to contact me via the Dig In UX website or my LinkedIn page.

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