Explore Best Practices in Values-Driven Design
Learning Objectives
After completing this unit, you’ll be able to:
- Integrate values into the design and build process.
- Practice diversity, equity, and inclusion (DE&I) during the design and build process.
- Explain the internal/external relationship that exists in values-driven design.
Where It All Begins
The design and build process is where being values-driven begins. During this process, teams consider how they can express the core values their organization stands for, such as inclusivity and trust, in a product or service. Then they work creatively to deliver innovative ideas that deliver on business objectives while expressing those values.
In the mobile app example mentioned earlier, Bloomington Caregivers integrates its core values of inclusivity, customer success, and accountability from the moment it’s framing the challenge and building a team to solve it. This is a key best practice in values-driven design. As you learned earlier, if values aren’t driving the process initially along with business objectives, it’s easy to lose sight of them and only focus on more fiscally oriented business goals.
Another important best practice in values-driven design is making sure diversity, equity, and inclusion (DE&I) is part of the design and build process.
A Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Approach
Much like the fictional company Bloomington Caregivers, many organizations have core values that speak to DE&I practices, owning inclusivity as one of their core values. For organizations that share inclusion goals, it’s essential to exhibit their DE&I through consistent action. But even for organizations that don’t include DE&I-driven core values, there’s a business case for practicing DE&I.
Organizations can’t do a good job serving a market they don’t understand. Yes, they can hire experts and trained professionals, but, ultimately, there’s no substitute for lived experience. This means organizations that intentionally weave DE&I into processes, like hiring diverse teams, have a more significant opportunity to expand their market potential.
In the example you learned about earlier, Bloomington Caregivers adopted an active approach to DE&I through:
- Collaboration with an advisory council to understand the diverse needs of its customers and the larger community.
- The practice of including diverse subject-matter experts on the council who brought lived experience to the table.
- Setup of kiosks in hospitals and clinics that use its app to create more equity in access for customers who don't have consistent access to a mobile device.
When an organization applies a DE&I approach to its design-and-build process, the organization uses a “design with” model. In this model, rather than “designing for” groups of people, teams bring their expertise in designing products and services and pair those with subject-matter experts who bring a wealth of lived experience, ideas, and wisdom.
An Inside Job
Designing with diverse groups of people during the internal design and build process also highlights another critical best practice in values-driven design: It’s an inside job.
Internally, organizations need diverse opinions and experiences to provide insight into everything from brand, policy, product, and service development. If they don’t seek this out, they risk developing each of these with a limited perspective, constricting their potential to appear to a broader audience.
Varied opinions help organizations broaden their perspectives. But, it’s not enough to invite diverse populations to share their input. Organizations must demonstrate that they’re listening, and making changes to the best of their ability, according to this feedback. If there is not this internal commitment to core values and deep listening, it becomes apparent externally.
You only need to look to recent headlines and scandals for examples of this internal/external dissonance—organizations pledging equity and integrity among their core values and ending up in court for discrimination and fraud charges. Society hears this discord loud and clear and uses it to base decisions on who they do business with, which organizations they build relationships with, and what they buy.
These internal/external contradictions also erode trust between organizations, customers, and the community, which, in turn, take a toll on the relationships between these groups. But just as misalignment can weaken relationships and eat away at trust, alignment, paired with open communication, strengthens them.
To create more alignment, organizations can take the time to:
- Examine how their actions and decisions line up with their core values.
- Communicate these efforts to customers and the community.
- Do the work to fill in any gaps—rethinking/revising processes and initiatives that are not aligned with their values.
When organizations take these steps, they set themselves up to build and bolster trusting relationships, both internally and externally.
Next, learn how organizations can assess what values their products and services express, including how they can use these assessment results to drive more internal/external alignment.