Human beings today exist in an environment almost completely structured by design. The spaces in which we live, the ways we move from place to place, the tools we use to accomplish our goals, even the things we eat and drink show the influence of generations of thought and planning. Whether they realize it or not, designers wield tremendous power.

Aware of the responsibility that comes with this power, Chicago’s Cannon Design decided to collaborate with Insight Labs to investigate the question of how we can make design more human. Specifically, what bad habits, conventions, and methodologies can we remove from the design disciplines to help them better serve humanity?

Labs Content Director Andrew Benedict-Nelson sought answers from representatives from a variety of design disciplines for answers in advance of the Lab. Here’s what Louise Belmont-Skinner of the Chicago Children’s Museum had to say. Click here to hear from her colleagues in other fields.

Andrew Benedict-Nelson: When you look at the field of exhibit design, what qualities do you see that bring out the best in us or make us more human?

Louise Belmont-Skinner: Well, that question assumes that we are successful at designing exhibits for our audience. When we successfully design exhibit experiences I think we are engaging our visitors and inviting them to enter into that experience beginning with their own experiences, skills, and strengths. I think this is a very respectful approach to the visitor. A successful exhibit will engage the visitor at their level and then allow the visitor to inform the exhibit as much as the exhibit gives the visitor something.

You also need to build this in from the start — you want the visitor to impact the exhibit as much as you the designer create the exhibit. Once you allow the visitor to leave their mark, then the visitor is relating not only to the exhibit but to other visitors, and that sense of building community in that experience is just fabulous. As a designer, you learn so much from observing it, if you’re willing to let the visitor impact the experience. Obviously it has its limitations — I suppose if you had a Leonardo da Vinci, you’d be less likely to do that. But access for the visit is a great experience for me as a designer when it is done successfully, and I know it is a great experience for the visitor.

ABN: What is a project you have worked on or that you have observed in the world that embodies the qualities you’re talking about?

LBS: There was an experience we allowed ourselves to develop at the Chicago Children’s Museum, the likes of which we had not done before. That exhibit was called “Forts.” It is based on what we feel is a universal experience in children’s lives — and that has been verified through academic research — which is the desire of kids to build their own private spaces. This research has shown that kids will create spaces that separate themselves from others in order to have control over their world, inviting other people in or not. This exhibit was based on that concept.

What I love about it is that it is a physically minimal experience. We based it on using a physical structure of recognizable household furniture, like an upside-down table, stools, chairs. Then we loaded up the exhibit with household fabrics like sheets, tablecloths, towels, etc. We created a system of loops and pegs, and installed them on all the furniture and on the walls and on the floor and on benches. We also added recognizable and abstract props. Then we just opened the door.

It was amazing. The kids came in and instinctively knew what to do. Some adults chose to work with their kids and some chose not to. But memories were shared among adults and intergenerational conversations happened. It’s really an activated experience that builds on what kids do naturally or what they’ve always wanted to do. It’s a totally new experience and yet it’s based on something very universal.

ABN: So when you think about your field, what does the opposite? What brings out the worst in people or makes us less human? It could be ideas, conventions, methodologies, bad habits…

LBS: To me, in design, there are always multiple solutions, many of them equally good. I think that what brings out the worst in designers is when they insists that their way is the only way. And especially when designers are limiting themselves to their own experience. I feel like getting out in the world and asking other people questions really opens up worlds. When you don’t do that, I think that makes you pretty haughty and it makes you less human.

ABN: Can you think of a design out in the world that embodies those negative qualities that you’re talking about?

LBS: For the longest time there was a trend in the children’s museum world of taking branded characters — Arthur or Clifford or these cartoon media characters — and making them the center of the child’s museum experience, in physical form. These exhibits totally ignored who the exhibits were supposed to be for, which was the children. There were hard surfaces and no places to experiment. It was a very immutable environment, and kids aren’t like that. They all embodied the idea of “Here is what you do and here’s the questions you must answer,” and opposed to “What do you want to do? What questions do you want to answer?” That to me was the worst.

So as a result, the Chicago Children’s Museum made a policy that not only were we not going to take exhibits with branded characters, but we were for the most part not going to rent our facilities to exhibits that were created outside our institution, unless they shared the same criteria that we have. It’s more than the physical aspect of the exhibit — developmentally, you’ve got to have expertise there that understands who your audience is. Just as a curator understands an art work and brings insight to that experience, the subjects we choose have to be interpreted with the developmental stages of kids in mind. It’s about inviting the kids in, not pushing our ideas on them.

ABN: Do you think that centering these exhibits on the characters or brands actual caused the bad design? Or is it just coincidental?

LBS: I think there is an element of inflexibility when you choose a branded character. That inflexibility has to do with the whole corporate structure behind it. Those characters are funded. Those characters have corporate sponsors. They use colors and shapes based on the criteria that were established for them. But you are going from television or print into an environment. How do you take that two-dimensional character and make it three-dimensional? So I would say that if the creative or design professional feels that they cannot use the best design criteria because there is already a list of criteria related to the character, you’re not adapting that experience to the physical space.

But this is not just about brand-name characters. There are problems when museums choose any concept that is not rigorously adapted to where kids are at. For example, no one would say that environmentalism is not something we want our children to learn. But we have done a lot of work trying to understand what a five-year-old can be responsible. A five-year-old cannot be responsible for saving whales. So it’s a discipline that ‘s still pretty young and needs work.

Our philosophy is that kids learn through play. We are connecting play and learning. If you don’t believe that play is a really deep activity for children, if you don’t allow them time and space for that, how can you possibly design an experience for kids?