Abstract
Trans and queer individuals, particularly transmasculine, transfeminine, nonbinary and genderqueer folks, remain underrepresented in contemporary design practice despite a growing awareness of the community’s existence. This project creates a set of translational materials co-created by members of the queer community. These materials are intended to educate industry professionals on queer perspectives and provide actionable methods to help design solutions that meet the needs of queer people. Co-creation processes centering the queer community were used to identify and describe key queer-inclusive design principles: discretion, perception, inclusion, and motion. These principles were then translated into an educational zine intended for creative professionals, as well as a product that embodies queer-inclusive design: Tac-tiles, an inclusive fidget system. Together, these materials provide a framework to jumpstart the design of queer-positive products, spaces, and experiences that will improve the lives of queer users and many other marginalized populations.
Keywords
norm-making, lived experience, translational design, participatory design
DOI
https://doi.org/10.21606/drs.2026.1134
Citation
Putman, C. (2026) Queering Design with a Queer Community: Co-creation, Translation, and Application of Queer-positive Design Principles, in Simeone, L., Gray, C. M., Verhoeven, A., de Götzen, A., Bakırlıoğlu, Y., Zohar, H., Stead, M., and Buwert, P. (eds.), DRS2026: Edinburgh, 8–12 June, Edinburgh, United Kingdom. https://doi.org/10.21606/drs.2026.1134
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License
Included in
Queering Design with a Queer Community: Co-creation, Translation, and Application of Queer-positive Design Principles
Trans and queer individuals, particularly transmasculine, transfeminine, nonbinary and genderqueer folks, remain underrepresented in contemporary design practice despite a growing awareness of the community’s existence. This project creates a set of translational materials co-created by members of the queer community. These materials are intended to educate industry professionals on queer perspectives and provide actionable methods to help design solutions that meet the needs of queer people. Co-creation processes centering the queer community were used to identify and describe key queer-inclusive design principles: discretion, perception, inclusion, and motion. These principles were then translated into an educational zine intended for creative professionals, as well as a product that embodies queer-inclusive design: Tac-tiles, an inclusive fidget system. Together, these materials provide a framework to jumpstart the design of queer-positive products, spaces, and experiences that will improve the lives of queer users and many other marginalized populations.