Designing for Teens, With Teens
We can learn a lot from the next generation
Recently, while digging a bit deeper into my own connection to human-centered design and inclusivity, I came across a simple yet powerful mantra:
Nothing about us, without us.
This phrase, with origins in Central European politics, came into use through disability activism during the 1990s. The idea is simple: Never create something for a group of people, without that same group of people being involved in the creation.
It sounds simple, yet it’s often overlooked or replaced with customer personas and unchecked assumptions about a specific community. This mantra (sometimes shortened to “nothing without us”) is a simple way for designers, product managers, leaders, innovators, educators, lawmakers, and many others to practice more inclusive design.
This past week, I had the opportunity to join 40 folks, similar to those I listed above, in Boston for two days of brainstorming and prototyping as part of Headstream: Springboard. Over these two days, we worked directly with teens as we thought about ways to positively impact that group’s mental health and well-being.
The outputs ranged from a music app plugin to help listeners transition moods, to a system for helping break the act of mindless…
