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.
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!
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