How Can You as a Lone Designer Start Improving the World?

by Rikke Friis Dam | | 18 min read
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Has Don Norman convinced you to work on important societal issues? As a lone designer, what can you do? If you are a new designer who has just graduated from design school, an experienced designer, or a designer who would like to shift your company’s path toward helping the world, there are ways to make these things happen. In this video, Don shares his wisdom on how you can accomplish it by joining an organization or company that is already working on these issues, by gaining authority in your current company, or by joining a type of corporation—such as a “b-corp” in the US—that is actually set up legally to address some important societal issues. 

“If you want to work on the major societal issues, those are very difficult. There's no easy step to doing that. But it's one of the most important things that designers can do.”
— Don Norman

Don Norman, co-founder and Principal Emeritus of Nielsen Norman Group, is trying to mobilize the current and next generations of designers to use their insights in design as a way of thinking to solve the world’s major societal issues. And we as designers can solve these, and reap wonderful rewards for our planet and the people on it.

What big issue would you like to address in your design work? Watch this video to see more from Don Norman on how you can make it happen!

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© Interaction Design Foundation, CC BY-SA 3.0

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