Resources for Design Forge 2024

Here are the Trauma-Informed Design slides presented at the Design Forge Conference in 2024.

Academic articles Referenced

Benjet, C., Bromet, E., Karam, E. G., Kessler, R. C., McLaughlin, K. A., Ruscio, A. M., Shahly, V., Stein, D. J., Petukhova, M., Hill, E., Alonso, J., Atwoli, L., Bunting, B., Bruffaerts, R., Caldas-de-Almeida, J. M., de Girolamo, G., Florescu, S., Gureje, O., Huang, Y., … Koenen, K. C. (2016). The epidemiology of traumatic event exposure worldwide: results from the World Mental Health Survey Consortium. Psychological Medicine, 46(2), 327–343. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0033291715001981

Eggleston, M. and Noel, L.A. (2024). Repairing the Harm of Digital Design Using a Trauma-informed Approach. Diseña, 1-19. (English and Spanish versions) https://www.revistadisena.uc.cl/index.php/Disena/article/view/58767

Kelly, S., Lauren, B. & Nguyen, K. (2021). Trauma-informed Web Heuristics for Communication Designers. Proceedings of the 39th ACM International Conference on Design of Communication, 172–176. https://doi.org/10.1145/3472714.3473638

Scott, C. F., Marcu, G., Anderson, R. E., Newman, M. W. & Schoenebeck, S. (2023). Trauma-Informed Social Media: Towards Solutions for Reducing and Healing Online Harm. Proceedings of the 2023 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI ’23), April 23-28, 2023, Hamburg, Germany. https://doi.org/10.1145/3544548.3581512

Other VALUABLE Resources

Any questions? Please contact me.

Trauma-Informed Website Resources

Updated February 2023 - Are you hoping to make your website or app trauma-informed? Terrific! You are in the right place to learn more.

If you are seeking consultation or support when making trauma-informed technology, visit the Trauma-Informed Technology website.

Resources to help you LEARN

What is Trauma-Informed Design? (19 min video above) - A short explanation of trauma-informed design as it relates to websites/apps/digital tools. It includes my experience and a few practical tips.

More on Trauma: If you want to understand trauma and its impact better, The National Child Traumatic Stress Network has FREE classes available. There are many experts talking on all sorts of trauma topics. You just need to sign in and register, but there’s no cost for learning.

Thanks to receiving Aquent's Design for Good Grant, I worked on a project with the North Carolina Coalition Against Domestic Violence (NCCADV) You can find more details here about the trauma-informed project and these 3 resources below:

Learn with Others

Trauma-informed design discussion group: I founded and co-organize a trauma-informed design discussion group that you can join. We have monthly calls on the 3rd Wednesday of the month that you can participate in. We are a group of designers/social workers/others that discuss how people apply trauma-informed principles to digital projects. Request to join our Trauma-informed Design Google group.

Upcoming talks. I’m speaking for a few groups in 2023 on trauma-informed design and research. See upcoming events on my About page.

Poster created with Do’s and Don’ts for designing for those who have experienced trauma

Poster created with Do’s and Don’ts for designing for those who have experienced trauma

Here are the Do’s and Don’ts from the poster in text form:

Do

Design with mobile and touch in mind (e.g. use click-to-call phone numbers)

Progressively disclose information

Make sure safety alerts and info on getting help is unmissable

Be inclusive of all people

Use quotes and/or images from real people (if safe to do so)

Don’t

Assume your visitors are on a desktop or laptop computer

Overwhelm with two many options

Bury safety alerts and info on getting help on a cluttered web page

Assume survivors all identify the same way

Use triggering images that depict violence or uninformative stock photos

 If you have questions about any of the above, please contact me.

Resources for NCCASA Conference Attendees

Please use and/or share any of the following items with others.

Great book for further learning about UX: Don't Make Me Think by Steve Krug

The webinar on August 11 will be on NCCADV's webinar page soon. 

Let's make trauma-informed websites a trend so we can better help survivors!

Is Your Website Trauma-Informed?

In the field of user experience (UX), we often talk about designing for delight. We focus on how good we can help a person feel when interacting with a website or other technology. But in some cases, website design and content choices aren't about delight at all. They might be about relief. Or they could be as serious as life or death.

I'm studying how to improve websites serving domestic violence (DV)/interpersonal violence (IPV) survivors. How can these websites meet the complex needs of this group of people? There are neurological, social, and physiological effects of trauma and interpersonal violence. Plus, there are safety and privacy issues in these situations.

Looking at the websites of organizations that serve survivors has led me to these questions:

  • Are the websites helping survivors feel empowered to take the next step toward help?

  • Or are the websites aggravating the symptoms of trauma itself?

  • So...what would a trauma-informed website look like?

Here's a screenshot of the current North Carolina Coalition Against Domestic Violence homepage. We are addressing the UX issues and also thinking about survivor-sensitive features. A grant from the staffing agency Aquent makes this possible!

Here's a screenshot of the current North Carolina Coalition Against Domestic Violence homepage. We are addressing the UX issues and also thinking about survivor-sensitive features. A grant from the staffing agency Aquent makes this possible!

The US government offers some direction on being trauma-informed in general. The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration of the US Government (SAMHSA) has Six Key Principles of a Trauma-Informed Approach:

  1. Safety

  2. Trustworthiness and Transparency

  3. Peer Support

  4. Collaboration and Mutuality

  5. Empowerment, Voice and Choice

  6. Cultural, Historical, and Gender Issues

Some of these principles overlap with those of UX. For example, trust is often critical to share personal or financial information with a website. It's important to be trustworthy both to be trauma-informed AND to have great UX. Plus, a positive user experience can feel empowering. A poor one can feel overwhelming and disheartening.

I'm exploring how these SAMHSA principles combine with those I've learned in my UX career. I'm hoping to translate these principles into action items to make websites trauma-informed. There are also a number of survivor-sensitive features that are necessary for service agency websites. 

Becoming trauma-informed and user-friendly may not require a costly redesign. I suspect it's often about making smarter design and content choices. With a UX and trauma-informed lens, we can improve survivors' experience.

I'm speaking at the North Carolina Coalition Against Sexual Assault conference in May. I'm not going there knowing all the answers. But I'll share what I've learned so far about making a website trauma-informed. This work is important for the safety of all people suffering within violent relationships. 

I'm all for designing for delight, but I'd love more people to help on this more serious issue too. Please get in touch if you want to join forces for good.

See trauma-informed website resources here.