My Design Rant (mini version)

The place I work at is getting a redesign and I hate it. We all hate it. Nobody at the little fish level was consulted and it shows. I however have the slight advantage of being able to articulate why I’m so bothered by their design choices. I went down a YouTube rabbit hole recently that gave me the key words I needed, like “user-centered design” and “evidence-based design”. A much longer, more source heavy rant is probably coming at a later date, but here’s the mini version:

What is “good” design? For me good design accomplishes three things:

1) it’s Safe. I’m literally pulling the “safety first” thing, but I truly believe that safety should be the first and most important consideration in design. I hate my commute to work and to school because it feels dangerous to drive anywhere because the roads don’t feel safe. Thanks to the YouTube rabbit hole I know there are cost effective means of designing streets to make roads safer for cars and pedestrians. Another example I have from work is they repaved the road and whoever redrew the lines clearly had no idea how vectors work because at a three-way stop they made one of the lanes too narrow so that cars in the north bound lane trying to turn right towards the east were literally turning into the left turn lane for cars in the west bound lane. See hastily drawn visual aid below.

2. Good design is beautiful. I know people say that “beauty is in the eye of the beholder” but they’re probably mistakenly thinking of “taste” which is acquired through socialization. My “taste” probably isn’t going to match that of someone with a different socioeconomic or cultural background than myself. There are a lot of elements that I’ve grown to appreciate over the years, but when talking about “beauty” I’m referring to 5 basic elements that constantly retain viewer appreciation over the long term rather than elements that are subjected to “seasons”. The five elements are: biomimicry, ornament, curves, symmetry, and “ordered complexity”. Biomimicry refers to things we find in nature like fractals as well as obvious nature elements such as living plants and plant and animal motifs. Ornament is fairly self explanatory. Curves refers to things like arches and domes. Symmetry is also fairly self explanatory. Lastly “ordered complexity” is probably the hardest to achieve because you have to find the right balance between too little and too much. Although the amount of appreciation will vary from person to person, these are the elements that science says we like to come back to. A beautiful design is a sustainable design because it doesn’t have to be changed with the seasons.

3. Lastly good design is humanizing. We need to design things for humans with humans in mind. My earlier example of the bad paint job didn’t even have cars in mind when they divided up the available space much less people. Roads are safer when we make room for pedestrians and bikers. There’s an apartment complex right next to where I work. It’s a TWO minute walk from the apartment complex, but there’s no sidewalk to connect the apartment complex to the shopping area and it’s a 20 minute drive to get out of the apartment complex and take the main road. It’s so frustrating because it’s so fixable.

Circling back to why I’m so upset about the new look for my workplace and company. Originally the company I work for went for a “neighborhood” model, to where each store was unique and tried to integrate itself into the surrounding community. That was one aspect of the company I respected and lined up perfectly with what I learned both in class and from my YouTube rabbit hole. Now, however, the stores are all switching over to a universal design and we need to be “hospital clean”. Like, has anyone BEEN in a hospital recently? Even hospitals are moving away from the “hospital clean” look. Let me tell you, it was a LOOONG walk from the parking garage to my dad’s room in the ICU and every foot of that hospital was covered in ART from local artists. There was ART in the ICU room that served as something I felt I could anchor to in a very mentally and emotionally trying time. My doctor’s office has art in the examination rooms. There’s art in every room at the dental offices I go to.

The reason I’m so upset about the new look at my job is they are forbidding ornamentation and have taken down all the signage, they are removing all complexity and painting all the walls and doors the same bland color. I told my coworkers it’s giving “dissociating in a mental hospital”. The lighting with the new paint color makes us look tired (I mean we are because we’re healthcare workers but I don’t need a paint color to make it obvious). There’s nothing in the waiting area for customers to look at so if they’re not on their phones customers just staring at us the whole time while we’re trying to do our jobs. There also wasn’t a reason given for the changes other than someone “very high up” wanted it. Rolling out big changes without getting feedback first or giving an explanation of why the changes are necessary is a surefire way to alienate your workforce.

It’s unsafe, it’s ugly, and it’s dehumanizing. It’s a bad design.

Incase you missed it (highlights from the International Asexuality Day livestreams)

April 6th was International Asexuality Day and the ace orgs from around the world got together and did a 24hr livestream called Aces never EVER sleep. Unfortunately I did have to sleep through some of it. I was able to catch the beginning of the stream and the beginning of the Spotlight on Australia and I missed the Spotlight on Vietnam, Spotlight on India, Books with Ace Representation panel, Arts and Crafts, Spotlight on Netherlands, Anti-LGBT Laws: Georgia, Spotlight on Chile, Spotlight on Pakistan, Spotlight on Poland, the School and Education panel so I need to go back and watch ALL of that. I tuned back in for the Spotlight on Nepal who powered through their technical issues. I want to give a special shout-out to Dr. Manita Newa Khadgi and I sincerely how we see and hear more from them in the future.

Incase you missed it, I HIGHLY recommend going back to watch the Spotlight on Bangladesh with Dipa Mahbuba Yasmin, the founder of Bangledesh Asexual Association and see her amazing protest artwork. I have no words for how beautiful and powerful her artwork comes across, you really need to see it for yourself and hear the stories behind the different pieces.

Next up was Yasmin Benoit talking about her partnership with Stonewall on the Ace Report. Yasmin talked about how when you don’t see yourself represented it means you have to step up and be that representation (for better or worse as seen in her twitter replies). She talked about the tremendous effort, negotiations, and collaborations it took to get the Stonewall Ace Report off the ground- again emphasizing that if the research isn’t there it probably means you need to be the one to make it happen. I’ve seen a lot of acephobes try to rip into the Stonewall Ace Report and the report put out by AACAU trying to delegitimize them by saying it’s “not scientific enough” or the research was “done by people who don’t know what they’re doing”. There is no objectivity when it comes to aphobia. The people who perpetuate aphobia are not doing so because it’s “scientific” or because they’re “experts”, they do it out of ignorance and most of the time it’s willful ignorance so shout out to Yasmin for taking that on. Hopefully we see many more opensource research about aces and aros come out in the future. These reports are meant to start conversations, not be a period at the end of a sentence.

Next up came Chiacchierata ace [IN ITALIANO], I don’t speak Italian, but I was dog sitting at the time of the stream and he didn’t seem to mind the panel in the background (I assume it was a delightful break from the regular tv shows his owner plays from him when she’s out). The folks behind IAD have a mission to bring more diverse language groups into the global conversation and are always looking for volunteer translators.

Speaking of translations, the Italian Aces were kind enough to switch back to English for the next panel dedicated to Writing about asexuality. I confess I became distracted by Kay’s cat, however, Francesca mentioned that there is a growing body of ace literature not just in English. It’s probably very easy to get caught up in our own little communities, but but we do have this amazing communication technologies available to us, we have international cooperation efforts like the IAD livestreams, and thus there are opportunities to expand our understanding of asexuality beyond the English-speaking side of the globe.

The next panel was Autistic Aces…Assemble. There were some technical issues, as can be expected with streaming technology, so the panel is split between two recordings and picks up again here. I’ll often see acephobes on social media try to dismiss asexuality or aromanticism as “just autism” and sort of the jerk reaction from aces is to deny the claim in a way that perpetuates ablism or continues the stigmatism of mental illness. There are aces who have autism and there are aces with mental illness and it’s not fair to them to ask them to keep their asexuality and/or romanticism separate where their identity intersects. As the panelists mentioned, they did their best to pack as much representation into the panel as possible, but they represent just a sliver of what is a very big, very nuanced conversation.

We are so close to the end, thank you for reading this far into my recap. I missed a lot of the stream at the beginning that I’ll be catching up on in the coming weeks. It’s a lot which is why if you see something you want to check out first I’ve included the links with the appropriate time code. There have also been talks of hosting more streams throughout the year to feature more of the global community.

Very quickly, there was a Spanish language panel. Once again, I don’t speak Spanish, but I had it on the background for the dog I was pet sitting. After the Spanish language panel there was a panel dedicated to Aro-erasure and ace activism. This panel made my little aro heart both very happy and very sad. One of the comments that was highlighted said, “​​I’m often suspicious of fully aspec spaces as an aro person, because of the exclusion I’ve had historically. Any thoughts on how to make the spaces inclusive for folks who’ve been hurt this way?” Something that was pointed was that different countries have different histories regarding activism. The US model can’t be a blueprint because of it’s fairly unique history and it’s current status as an economic and military superpower.

And with that note, it was time to turn the stream over to the US & Canada team.

The next panel was Anti-racism in the Ace community. A lot of great resources were mentioned in the panel including Native Land Digital, The Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada: Calls to Action, Ace in Grace and the Ace Flag Revision survey, information about Aspects Committed to Anti-racism (ACAR) including their Gaza Action Document. Ashabi talked about her experience as a Black woman in the ace community and how that experience is subject to intersectionality. The conversation then moved to ace (and queer) representation in media as being primarily white including how that affects biases in generative AI. Panelists shared their recommendations for works by people of color including Ace: What Asexuality Reveals About Desire, Society, and the Meaning of Sex (2021) by Angela Chen, Refusing Compulsory Sexuality: A Black Asexual Lens on Our Sex-Obsessed Culture (2022) by  Sherronda J. Brown, and Ending the Pursuit: Asexuality, Aromanticism and Agender Identity (2024) by Michael Paramo. Michael Paramo is also the editor of the AZEjournal, a literary publication dedicated to highlighting diversity withing aspec spaces, and one of the panelists, Justin, has two articles in the AZEjournal if someone wants a more digestible read to start off with. Although not ace specific, Justin recommended Bi: Notes for a Bisexual Revolution by Shiri Eisner as a necessary read. Panelist Yilin recommended Song of the Six Realms by Judy I. Lin, a fantasy novel that features a demisexual character. Yilin also recommended “A Hundred Different Ways of Being in Love”: Emma, Queer Austen, and Asexuality Studies co-authored by Lillian Lu featured in Vol 36 of Eighteenth-century Fiction journal.

Yilin is also a writer and translator herself which is a nice segue into the next panel Translating Chinese poetry and literature as an aro-ace. Yilin’s own book, The Lantern and the Night Moths, came out this past week. I had already ordered my copy, but after watching Justin and Yilin talk about her work and the book I am now even more excited and I can’t wait for my copy to arrive. It was a fantastic discussion I recommend checking it out.

The last panel of the night was Split Attraction and the complexities of being an Orientated ace with Justin and Jenna. It wasn’t really any new information for me, I’ve written posts about split and divergent attraction in the past, but it aways makes me happy to see people having having a nuanced discussion about the weird, wonderful, and the queer bits of asexuality and aromanticism. I discovered tumblr when I was 25 and I was there when a bunch of young people were like, “let’s throw everything at the wall and see what sticks”. I was all for it then and I love it now. People are weird and people are complicated and I want the ace community to be a place where that truth is acknowledged and celebrated.

Overall I think the IAD teams did a fantastic job. A 24hr stream is a massive beast of a project and from what I saw it was executed masterfully with minimal technology issues, nothing beyond what you would expect from such an ambitious project. The stream provided an opportunity for aces orgs to see their counterparts across the globe in action. I was also very excited to be able to put some faces to the twitter handles. I’ve included a lot of links in this post, please take the time to check them out and support the global aspec community.