Service Design Show Solving the systemic issue that's holding design back / Mauricio Manhaes / Episode 186
Oct 12, 2023
Mauricio Manhaes shares findings on the systemic issue limiting the impact of design, workplace bullying, using AI to analyze episodes, structural patterns in design, recognizing systemic discrimination, and the importance of nuances in design. Listeners are encouraged to join the community and be part of fixing the broken system.
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Designers Face Systemic Workplace Harm
- Mauricio discovered recurring harmful patterns across senior in-house designers' daily experiences that resembled workplace bullying.
- These patterns appeared across time and organizations, indicating a systemic problem rather than isolated incidents.
Research Began With Everyday Stories
- Mauricio began by asking senior designers what a design-driven culture looks like and heard many unpleasant daily work stories.
- Those lived stories clustered into repeatable categories that shifted his study toward everyday experiences rather than abstract frameworks.
Four Recurring Patterns Emerge
- Interviewed designers' experiences clustered into four types: social exclusion, work abstraction, verbal hostility, and stereotyping.
- These clusters map directly to academic literature on workplace bullying, reframing design-culture problems as systemic mistreatment.