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Human-Centered Mentoring
By: Jonny Bywater, Student IIDA, City College of San Francisco
While I was fairly new to the concept of “human-centered design” at the beginning of this journey, when this design principle is applied to your mentorship process, you begin to understand very quickly why it is so effective. That is why this particular “human-centered mentorship” with Rachel Maloney, a Design Director at IDEO, was such a pivotal experience at the beginning of my design career. We realized together what I was truly looking for in a role as a designer and where I should be focusing my attention in order to contribute as best I can in this field.
I knew that this wouldn’t be a typical mentorship experience given the inability to meet in-person, let alone go near an office to experience a “day-in-the life” like previous years. However, given the miracles of technology, many Zoom meetings, and a lot of virtual sticky notes later, it was as if I was in a meeting room of IDEO, surrounded by seemingly random words and phrases on small, brightly colored squares, hoping to solve an issue through design.
By applying IDEO and Rachel’s human-centered design approach, my interests and strategies for entering the field of commercial design were dissected, examined, and reconfigured. Through this process, we were able to understand the characteristics I should be looking for in a firm and the types of people with whom I want to work, either virtually or in-person when that time comes.
In addition to Rachel’s virtual sticky-noting of my goals and interests, she assisted me with contacting speakers and preparing questions in order for me to lead an IIDA Northern California student roundtable. By bringing together three amazing designers in different commercial disciplines, I was able to use my newly defined values and questions to have fascinating discussions directly with professionals that helped me and other students taking part. We realized where may be the most rewarding area in which to work, the technical skills required for these roles, and also the soft skills that are so important in finding a place to be fulfilled and design something special.
The 2021 IIDA mentorship program was certainly unique, but through consistent virtual meetings inside our homes, it allowed for an environment with the most unfiltered versions of ourselves to be on display, and that was so important to me in finding trust with Rachel and her guidance.
Throughout this mentorship, I have asked myself the hard questions and learned where and for whom I want to contribute and why. Now that society has realized and is grappling with how tethered work is to our personal lives in the age of COVID, it is imperative that we apply our personal beliefs and goals for society wherever we choose to work. I have realized how to ask the right questions and form the relationships needed in order to best contribute to the world I want to create, and that all started by looking inwards and taking a human-centered mentorship approach with Rachel.
