Nov 16, 2023
Recently, Active Voice CEO Sara Wachter-Boettcher published an article in which she made a bold claim about designers: your company is gaslighting you.
Designers might know this feeling well. Content designers especially. Being told that you need to do more. Educate more. Prove your "worth" more. But Wachter-Boettcher says...no.
"It’s a manipulative technique that makes designers question their own sanity and assume that they’re the problem — but that maybe, if they just try one more time, things will change. But they never do. Because the truth is, you cannot overwork your way into being valued. You cannot explain or fight your way into being valued."
Content designers know this intimately. We are passionate about our work and internalize a lot. But it isn't healthy. And Wachter-Boettcher says we need to change our approach.
So we got her on to talk about it.