Social Health UX for Urbanism
Why is a user experience designer and friendship researcher talking about urban design? Because they’re more connected than you think.
If this is our first time meeting, here’s the synopsis of my 25-year career: Design + Community building + Facilitation + Qualitative research + Author
My talks, workshops, press interviews, newsletter, TEDx Talk, and bestselling book, We Should Get Together: The Secret to Cultivating Better Friendships, have helped thousands of adults around the world create stronger friendships, neighborhoods, and workplaces.
My background in community building and design gave me:
✔️ a designer’s toolbox (visual, program, community, and UX)
✔️ a qualitative researcher’s methodology
✔️ a product creator’s entrepreneurial mindset
✔️ and a community builder’s heart for people
But there was a plot twist incoming…
… After working as a UX designer whose work reached millions of people, and as a facilitator and coach guiding adults through the process of cultivating platonic connection, I noticed an uncomfortable truth:
The hidden reason why we’re in a loneliness epidemic is because of a failure of design. Our distraction-filled lives and the car-centric, isolating places we live in were designed (even if unintentionally) to result in disconnection.
But it doesn’t have to be that way.
If our lives, buildings, neighborhoods, and cities were designed for neighborly connection, people wouldn’t have to work so hard to meet basic human needs like friendship and community.
Until we accept our role in redesigning our lives and redesigning our places, people will continue to feel lonely and struggle to create the life-giving friendships and community connections they need and deserve.
Design creates places.
Design creates culture.
And design can create connection.
Let’s build that future together.
I will continue to help individuals design lives rich with platonic connection. But I want to help fix the problem at the structural level: urban design, hyperlocal neighborhood experience, and bringing life to public spaces. Here’s how we can work together