The Other L Word
Causes and cures for loneliness in the design industry
When I researched and wrote the book We Should Get Together: The Secret to Cultivating Better Friendships, I examined the causes of loneliness and platonic longing, and conversely, identified and explained the steps necessary for creating and maintaining strong friendships during adulthood. One angle I was curious about but didn’t explore specifically in the book was how loneliness manifested within my profession, which is (or "was"; I’m still figuring this out) — Design. My degree is in design and I've been actively designing for around two decades; I’ll always be a designer at heart but I question how much longer I want to make this one of my primary professional identities.
The throughline of my career has been one alternating between design and facilitation in various types, settings, and roles. I’ve worked at a lot of places in the last 20 years — all the way from being the lowly new designer on the team all the way up to being the most senior designer in a company. I felt lonely at small companies, medium-sized companies, and large companies — and I felt connected and made amazing friends at small companies, medium-sized companies, and large companies... because the size of the company is not what matters.
During the pandemic, when rates of loneliness were see-sawing up and down as people tried to figure out how to create and maintain feelings of connection during a time of physical distance, a question kept coming back to me: “How are my colleagues doing?”
So I held a series of qualitative interviews about connection and disconnection in the design industry. All interviewees opted in and were sourced via a survey that I posted online and shared via social media; to date over 165 professionals working in design and design research have taken the survey. Because the nature of our conversations were deeply personal, often emotional, and connected to their professional reputations, I've agreed to keep their identities anonymous and to mask identifying information when sharing more about their work location and context.
During this project, I heard from people in multiple countries who worked across business sectors in startups and small companies as well as those that worked at huge companies like Uber and Google. In my interviews, I spoke to newbies, mid-career folks, and design pros with 20+ years under their belt. The vast majority of them were working in-house as part of a team, as opposed to being freelancers working solo. I did speak to a handful of freelancers too, but their solo work situation warrants a different angle of inquiry so I chose to focus only on my intended scope: Full-time in-house designers who do have access to a team thus theoretically should have a higher likelihood of feeling connected at work.
Before unpacking the highs and lows, I want to call out one interesting discovery. I found imposter syndrome present at all levels: in new designers who'd only been working in the field for a year or two, and all the way up to VPs of design and prestigious art directors. Some of these accomplished design vets told me that they’d never felt like they fit in in the industry. As one head of design told me, when it comes to connection at work and feeling emotionally supported, "I've never felt this way as a professional. I'm all out of ideas after 20 years."
A key takeaway from these conversations: There is no title you can attain that will guarantee you a sustained feeling of belonging. There is no title you can earn that will prevent you from ever feeling lonely again. In fact, research published in the Harvard Business Review has found that the higher you climb on the professional ladder, the more likely you are to be lonely. Common reasons for being "lonely at the top" include: lack of peers, lack of social support, and exhaustion. These challenges are magnified if you're a woman or person of color, or someone who has achieved becoming "the first" or "the only" of any professional category.
Multiple other factors lead designers to feel lonely, to doubt their place in their field or company, and to consider changing jobs or changing careers. Loosely bucketed, the designers I spoke with said that the following issues contributed to their feelings of loneliness:
Fear / Lack of psychological safety. Many designers described their fear of being judged, shamed, or flamed by (or in front of) other designers. This can happen either on #DesignTwitter or IRL in their team’s weekly design review meeting. They’ve seen other people get publicly humiliated, and they’re terrified that the same thing will happen to them. One designer I spoke with said, "The biggest challenges are that in the design industry there is so much ego. It's competitive and it's intimidating." Another stated that they feel the most lonely, "when I see how horribly a lot of our peers treat each other."
Perfectionism. Design culture has an addiction to perfectionism. My friend and colleague Hugh Weber, CEO of We Must Be Bold, and The Great Discontent, and former board member of AIGA has also explored the issue of disconnection in the design industry and its impact on designers' lives. He traveled coast to coast to understand how loneliness was impacting designers’ lives. One designer he interviewed summed up the challenge by saying, “Our clients expect pixel-perfect work, and they also expect perfect people.” The pressure to project perfection at all times can be soul-crushing in what is already a stressful environment. The combination of perfectionism and competition makes people afraid to speak up, afraid to make mistakes, and afraid to be human.
Ethical misalignment. Designers described the sense of disconnection they felt when their personal ethics didn't align with the business objectives or the team's ethics. This also came up when they felt pressured to ship work that they knew was flawed or that didn't serve users and our society in the best way possible. One design leader said, "It's a visceral experience, I feel it in my stomach. When things are out of my control but I'm still responsible for it."
Lack of diversity / equity / inclusion. Lack of diversity in a design team hurts designers (and end-users, TBH) who are from underrepresented communities — and it also hurts those who have the most social privilege according to their race and gender. A male designer I interviewed in Scandinavia described how, when the one woman working in their startup resigned, he advocated for hiring more women. The guys in charge told him, "That doesn't matter, we don't need to do that." He was troubled by this, saying, "That is a problem to me. When a company doesn't look like real society, it makes me wonder if the company wants to belong to the future." A transgender designer I spoke to described the disrespect and lack of inclusion they face, saying, "No matter how good my work is, no matter what I propose — because I'm from an underrepresented group, they don't trust my abilities."
Lack of belonging / connection. The majority of the designers I talked to said they really do want to make friends at work. They want to feel a genuine sense of connection to their colleagues, but many corporate attempts at making that happen fall flat, and the social pressure to "be popular" leaves them feeling even more isolated. One design researcher working at a company in the top 10 of the Fortune 500 said, "In tech, connection feels elusive. I don't enjoy forced merriment. It doesn't feel authentic to me. I'm in my late 40s and am the same age as our director yet I'm forced to act like I'm a teenager to get people to like me. Having people like you and being a part of "the in-crowd" is a big part of how you get promoted but because I don't want to play that game, I've never been promoted. I'm not a showy person. My personality is not a deficiency. I just like being under the radar. At work, they say they want you to bring your whole self to work, but then they want to force you to change who you are."
Ageism / Lack of elders / Lack of mentorship. The industry's lack of mentors coupled with pervasive ageism makes it hard to get emotional and professional support, and it leaves many designers wondering if this is a career they can thrive in for the long haul. One newbie product designer who switched careers to enter tech lamented the ageism she observes, saying, “There's this resistance to working with older people. And when I look at company websites, I only see young faces, I don't see older people. It seems like the only people in their 40s and 50s are the VPs. Where are the designers in their 40s, 50s and 60s? What's happening? Is the industry erasing them? Similarly, I don't see many parents in design. I worry that having a kid will mean that I have to put my career aside.”
These compounding challenges mean that many designers struggle emotionally and psychologically in their profession. But because this issue is rarely talked about — and every time you look at social media and LinkedIn, everyone seems to be living their best lives — lonely designers can falsely believe that they're the only ones who are having a hard time. Acknowledging the reality about how much disconnection and loneliness are prevalent in the design field is sobering but crucial if we hope to improve working conditions and make the design profession a healthier, more inclusive, more appealing, and successful long-term career choice.
What we know for sure
👉🏾 The size of the company isn't the sole determinant of whether someone will feel included, respected, valued, appreciated, and connected with a strong sense of belonging.
👉🏾 Perfectionism combined with competition, lack of diversity, and lack of psychological safety leads to feelings of disconnection, despair, and loneliness.
How we can make things better
A lot of aspects of design culture are broken, but there are a lot of things that are working too. Many of the designers I interviewed and surveyed could name specifically what kinds of conditions help their team feel healthy, lead to real feelings of belonging, and give them a sense of hopefulness and pride about their occupation. Take these words as direct recommendations for ways to improve functioning and belonging on your design team. Designers are far more likely to feel connected, emotionally supported, and a sense of belonging in their teams and the design industry overall:
When they feel psychologically safe
When they can speak candidly, whether complaining, joking, or just checking on how people are really doing
When in 1:1 conversations with peers in which they can connect around shared work experiences and shared values of inclusion and ethics
When problem-solving together
When other designers talk about their struggles and when they can connect empathetically
When people open up and be themselves without name-dropping or showing off
When marginalized designers can voice their feelings of opposition or disagreement without fear of being labeled "angry" or "difficult"
When designers discuss important social issues and "not just the latest version of Figma"
When they can connect authentically face to face
When they can access more diverse design spaces, more engagement with other disciplines, and more critical thinking
When stakeholders attend user research sessions
When they're trusted to solve problems and their decisions are respected
When they have access to mentorship from more experienced designers and from someone other than their direct manager; when they can mentor less-experienced designers who are new to the field; when they can participate in peer mentorship with fellow designers helping each other learn or practice a skill without the fear that they’ll look bad for not having mastered that skill yet
When they have designer friends, whether those friends are designers at the same company or at another company
When team members demonstrate that they care about each other
When connecting in person, such as at casual meals, gatherings, conferences, and other social occasions by choice; not feeling forced into socializing or having gatherings feel like a performance
Why all of this matters now
We are quickly moving into the next phase of the COVID-19 pandemic, and the virus teeters on the edge of becoming endemic in our world. With this comes a continued proliferation of remote-only roles, alongside the tricky navigation of hybrid work. We’re once again in a moment of huge transition and uncertainty marked by varying levels of connection and disconnection.
It's worth noting that remote work isn't a net negative. For many — particularly workers who have been historically and systematically excluded — remote work is the boon they've been waiting for for years. A product designer I spoke with in Canada said she felt the most connected and emotionally supported when "being able to work from home and able to connect with other designers online throughout the day. It provides me with a greater sense of belonging." The distance provided by working from home reduced the discomfort and isolation she felt when working face to face in a team where she’s “an only”. She continued, noting that she felt the most disconnected and lonely "when working in the office. I am the only woman designer and I feel alienated and left out on most days." In the absence of the validation and belonging she would feel as part of a diverse team, actual physical distance is ironically the thing that helps her cope and feel more at ease. (As a woman of color who has often felt similarly isolated in non-diverse teams too, I echo her sentiments.)
These findings corroborate research results reported by LinkedIn and Future Forum which found that Black workers have felt a 50% boost in their feelings of belonging while working from home during the pandemic. When you don’t have to emotionally brace for microaggressions every day and you experience less face-to-face discrimination, you feel a lot more at ease. You also don’t have to code-switch in an environment that wants you to bring your assimilated self (rather than your “whole self”) to work. The true solution in this kind of situation is to fix the homogenous makeup of the team and its problematic alienating behavior. But if you can’t or won’t fix that, then remote work may prove to be the most desirable working condition for your staffmembers who experience the bitter brunt of in-office exclusion.
While there is no one-size-fits-all approach when it comes to cultivating connection, there are best practices you can follow to help yourself or your team feel greater belonging and connection. Use the list above to conduct your own in-team audit, ideally facilitated by a neutral third party. When you do so, make sure to provide a safe, non-judgmental space for your staff to confess their challenges and wishes, with the choice to stay anonymous or not. And when you listen — with the best of your active listening skills — reward courage and candor, not assimilation. Reward people for speaking openly and honestly about the things that aren’t working, as well as the things that are.
Many tokenized or alienated folks worry that they’ll be passed up for a promotion if they challenge the people in charge. They worry that they'll be told that they lack “executive presence” if they share their feelings and emotions. They're afraid they'll get ostracized for pointing out things that need for improvement. Especially if the people getting promoted only ever say that things are great. That’s not an environment that encourages open communication and candor. In any healthy relationship, including colleague and workplace relationships, people need to be able to say what’s not working, and to feel like it’s safe and acceptable to do so. So enthusiastically and thank and reward people who share difficult truths with you—they're helping you grow and do better. Their courageous honesty contributes to the success of your company.
The biggest takeaway
There isn't one best work location, one best team-bonding exercise, or one best kind of manager. People have unique personalities and needs, and these are constantly shifting in response to our dramatically changing world. There's a lot of pain in the world. According to research by Cigna published in 2020, 61% of Americans report feeling lonely on a regular basis — an increase from 54% in 2018. And the workplace is one of the places where people place their highest hopes for making friends.
It's critical that we take action to create more fulfilling connections, more belonging, and healthier teams. We have the ability to fix this if we agree to take it seriously. We can treat this problem with the same urgency that we use to design user flows for selling enterprise software and making grocery delivery apps delightful. Imagine if we used the same skills, curiosity, empathy, and ingenuity to create a healthier design industry for ourselves and our peers. We can do this. We are designers, after all.
Next steps
If this post resonated with you and you want to dive deeper, get in touch — I offer a talk called The Other L Word for companies and conferences. In this interactive talk, I supplement the info above with more data, real life examples, and practical steps you can put into action.
All best wishes,
Kat Vellos
Recovering Designer | Facilitator | Speaker | Author of We Should Get Together: The Secret to Cultivating Better Friendships
