TALKING ABOUT RACE
SERVICES
DIGITAL LEARNING
TRAUMA-INFORMED DESIGN
INTERACTION DESIGN
YEAR
2020
INFO
The NMAAHC Education team had developed extensive classroom materials to help educators and learners engage with conversations about race and racism. Originally planned prior to the pandemic, the platform launched in May 2020 during a pivotal cultural moment following the deaths of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor. As classrooms, workplaces, and communities increasingly turned to digital resources, the platform quickly became a widely referenced destination for education, reflection, and dialogue. I led the design research, strategy and user experience for this new initiative, focusing on trauma-informed design, inclusive design, and meeting each educator and student where they are at in the journey of learning about race.
PROBLEM
A core challenge of the project was translating deeply human classroom dynamics into a digital experience. Conversations about race often involve uncertainty, discomfort, reflection, and emotional vulnerability -elements that educators naturally navigate in person through pacing, discussion, pauses, and contextual support. Rather than simply digitizing educational content, the goal was to create a platform that could thoughtfully guide people through complex material while meeting them at different stages of understanding and engagement.
SOLUTION
I created unique components for this microsite to help create moments of pause and reflection, including in-page definitions of terms, open space components reminding reminding users to stop and think, and reflection questions at the end of resources for ways to think, talk, and act about the resource and their journey. Following its launch in May 2020, Talking About Race became a widely referenced educational resource during a pivotal national moment. The platform received millions of page views and sessions within its first months and was featured across major national publications including The Washington Post, Smithsonian Magazine, Travel + Leisure, and Washingtonian. The project was later recognized with a Gold Anthem Award for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion and nominated for a Webby Award in the Diversity & Inclusion category.
