Who She Was
Kat Holmes grew up without anyone who designed things for a living, and she studied engineering before moving into design. In 2013, while working on the first design of Cortana, Microsoft's digital assistant, she noticed that no one on the team had ever been a personal assistant or had one. That made her wonder what would be possible if technology were designed with people who already had deep expertise in the problem being solved. From 2014 to 2017, she was Microsoft's principal director of inclusive design, and the inclusive design toolkit she created there was featured in an exhibition at the Smithsonian's Cooper Hewitt design museum. Only a week after she left Microsoft, MIT Press invited her to write a book, and Mismatch: How Inclusion Shapes Design was published in 2018.
Why She Matters
Holmes uses the word mismatch to describe what happens when a design doesn't fit a person's body, abilities, or surroundings, and she explains how design can both cause exclusion and fix it. Her Persona Spectrum, a tool in Microsoft's inclusive design toolkit, starts by solving a problem for one person with a specific need and then extends that solution to many others. For example, a product designed to work well for someone with one arm can also help someone with an arm injury or a new parent holding a baby. One of her core beliefs is that no one is an average human being. In 2017, Fast Company named her one of its Most Creative People in Business, and she went on to become a director of UX design at Google and later Salesforce's chief experience and design officer.
