Designing from the margins

How queerness shapes my UX practice

Every June, companies around the world swap their logos for rainbow variations (but less so this year). And every June, many LGBTQ+ folks brace themselves for the dissonance between visibility and sincerity. Pride Month is a time of celebration but also of reflection: on how far we’ve come, what still needs to change, and how we show up for one another. For many of us, it’s also a time when the contrast between corporate statements and actual lived realities feels sharpest.

As a gay man working in tech and design, I often think about the intersections between queerness and user experience. Not in a loud, branded kind of way, like the rainbow company logos, but in the quieter nuances of how I navigate the world and how that informs my work. This is not an article about being a gay designer, or working in IT as a queer man. It’s about being a designer whose queerness has quietly, persistently shaped how I see people, systems, and spaces. And about why that matters now more than ever.

Queerness as a lens for empathy

Good design requires empathy. That’s a truism in our industry, but for LGBTQ+ people, and for any of us who have felt “othered”, empathy isn’t just a design skill: it’s survival. It’s the muscle you build when you’re constantly decoding social cues, scanning for safety, or navigating a world that wasn’t quite built with you in mind.

When I design a form, I think about what it means for someone to not see themselves in the options. When I outline a user journey, I imagine who might hesitate before trusting a platform. These aren’t abstract concerns for me. They’re reflections of my lived experience. And in a time when LGBTQ+ rights are being rolled back in places like the United States, and far-right movements gain momentum across Europe and the world, this kind of empathy is more necessary than ever.

The politics of inclusion

In the USA, we’re seeing legislation that attempts to erase queer lives from public education and limit access to affirming healthcare for trans youth. In Hungary, LGBTQ+ rights have been systematically attacked. Even Eurovision, the quintessencial queer music festival, banned Pride flags this year. These are not isolated incidents. And it’s easy to see these developments as separate from our daily work in design and tech. But they’re not.

Every interface we create, every system we support, either challenges exclusion or reinforces it. Design does not exist in a vacuum. When we normalize certain identities and exclude others, we’re not just making a design choice; we’re making a political one. Design is inherently political, because everything we do (and don’t do) is.

Inclusive design is not only a technical or aesthetic consideration. It’s a moral one. Are we building systems that allow people to live as themselves, safely and authentically? Are we anticipating harm, or are we ignoring it? This means thinking about things like deadnaming in sign-up flows, or the risks of facial recognition tools for trans users. It means understanding that language, images, and default values carry power with them.

This is why the idea of “inclusive design” cannot stop at accessibility checklists or optional pronoun fields. It must be rooted in a deeper understanding of how people live, fear, celebrate, and survive.

The power of being “off-center”

Being queer has often meant being on the margins socially, culturally, or even legally. But from a design perspective, the margins are a powerful vantage point. You see things others might not. You question assumptions others take for granted. You recognize patterns that aren’t clear for everyone else.

That perspective is a gift because it pushes me to ask better questions. Who is this really for? Who might we be excluding? What assumptions are we baking into this flow or this interface? It’s not just about visible representation. It’s about reimagining how products work for people who have long been overlooked.

This Pride Month, I find myself thinking less about rainbow logos and more about design culture. Who gets heard in our design critiques? Whose pain points are considered edge cases versus critical use cases? How do we make our teams safer, more empathetic, more human?

I think about the privilege I have in being able to speak up, and the responsibility that comes with it.

And I think about the joy of finding others who care. Who get it. Who want to do the work not because it’s trendy, but because it’s right.

Designing for a world that includes us all

Design is never neutral. Every choice we make includes some and excludes others. As queer people in tech, we bring a lived understanding of what exclusion feels like. That can be painful, yes, but it can also be fruitful. It can make us better listeners, more thoughtful collaborators, and more radical designers.

We have a chance to push beyond tokenism and into transformation. To ask not just “how can we include more people?” but “what would this look like if it were built from an entirely different starting point?”

This work is not always easy, but it is necessary. And during Pride Month, I’m reminded that we are not alone in doing it. That every inclusive product, every principled design decision, every team that embraces difference, is a step toward a more just digital world.

So this Pride Month, I’m not just celebrating visibility. I’m celebrating the quiet, persistent work of making digital spaces more inclusive. I’m celebrating the designers who question defaults, advocate for edge cases, and design from the margins.

Because the margins are where the future is being designed.

Happy Pride 🏳️‍🌈✊

Further reading

Inclusive & ethical design guidelines

• Microsoft Inclusive Design Toolkit
  Practical guidance on designing for diversity and disability, from Microsoft’s official design team.
• IDEA Toolkit
  Practical resources designed to help embed inclusive values and equitable practices into research, teaching, and workplace environments.
• A Primer on Ethical Design
  A concise site with tools, references, and frameworks for building ethical products.

LGBTQ+ in Tech

• Out in Tech
  Nonprofit dedicated to uniting the LGBTQ+ tech community and promoting diversity in tech workplaces.
• TransTech Social
  Nonprofit providing training and support for trans individuals in the tech industry.

Articles

• “If Tech Fails to Design for the Most Vulnerable, It Fails Us All”, by Afsaneh Rigot (WIRED)
• “Designing Ethical Technology Requires Systems for Anticipation and Resilience”, by Kirsten Martin and Bidhan L. Parmar (MIT Sloan)
• “LGBTQ+ Representation in Tech: Challenges and Opportunities”, by Ironhack

Designing from the margins was originally published in UX Collective on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.