‘You deserve to have sex’: The research project that started the movement

‘You deserve to have sex’, the title of my very first public project and the trigger for Be Kind Research’s journey.

This project happened whilst working with a disability charity developing online advice content as part of the in-house team, focused on intimacy and relationships for disabled people with a variety of different needs and life experiences.

This title came about after a content research session, with a trusted participant, discussing how relevant the content was for them. In this case, they asked me ‘why are you asking me to read this’, ‘I don’t deserve to have sex’. And this floored me and I had further questions. I had to understand why this was the case, why did this outspoken, intelligent, young individual, share with me that they didn’t feel deserving of intimacy.

And although ‘I’ wanted to learn more, this was such an honest and vulnerable position the participant was in. So, I went ‘off script’, I no longer asked questions specifically relating to the piece of content, and opened the conversation so that they had the space to share their experiences, safely and honestly.

I stopped trying to extract information purely for the sake of the project, and instead gave space to knowledge that could improve how we, as an organisation, understood the much wider context that our advice content was sitting in.

This is not the way I was taught how to do research. Going ‘off-script’ was rarely encouraged so that project goals could be reached.

Despite me trying a new approach, to my relief they felt comfortable to share how they had been removed from class as a teen, and disregarded in sexual education lessons. They talked about privacy, about how their impairment would impact ‘traditional’ intimacy.

When the participant moved on, I understood that they were done speaking about such a personal topic. And although I still had questions, it was a stark reminder in ‘Stop asking questions just because you want to’.

Instead of prying further, I quickly wrote down my remaining questions and spoke to subject matter experts on the topic. It’s their job to provide this information and I could be as prying as I needed to understand the detail. I spoke with sex educators, policy makers, ex-teachers, and found out all the detail behind systematically removing disabled people from the conversation of their own intimacy, of consent, of pleasure.

I was heartbroken.

So, I decided to share this research. First, completely anonymise and change smaller details that would keep the participant’s privacy secure. Second, give it a catchy but honest title so people would be intrigued and listen. Third, tell as many people as would listen until I started to see change in this sector.

I became a part of this wider change for good, putting real people’s stories at the centre. Now, sexual education organisations are more common than not, disability charities have grown from this very principle, educating and sharing positivity around the subject.

After this, I wanted to see more impact, more improvement in people’s daily lives.

I moved into consultancy, becoming an accessibility specialist with the intention to embed better research communication, accessibility and inclusion into government contracts, services, and systems. I became a Product Design lecturer with the aim to teach kinder research as a core skill that designers should be aware of. I moved into private sector, worked on products that we use everyday. All in aid to make conversations like that day, a rare occurrence.

I’ve been on a mission to improve how we set-up and run research to ensure we are allowing for inclusive and human communication throughout so that we can make real change without purely extracting information for our own benefits.

Which was harder than I expected. And I am only one person.

After 10 years on this mission to change the communication, the foundations, of user research, it dawned on me that if I was to continue to make a real impact, i’d have to find ways to show you all how to do this too.

So I’m writing it all down.

I’m offering my templates, my approaches, my love of uncovering real needs, through kinder communication. I’m doing this until I’m no longer needed and design has Be Kind Research approaches embedded.

I need this to reach brands, marketers, architects, UX designers, Product Teams, Service Designers, and anyone who makes decisions on products that effect our daily lives.

These blogs and social media will act as ways you can learn practical examples and actionable changes from real industry experience to build kinder research communication across everything you create.

I can’t wait to meet you all on this journey. Speak soon, Be Kind,

Alex