Triangulation: The Backbone of Animal Centered Design
Originally published: January 8, 2023 on pH-auna.com, revisited August 14, 2025
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Why Designing Across Species Requires Multiple Lenses
Designing for humans is already nuanced—but when we extend that practice to animals, we enter a world where our usual assumptions about feedback, communication, and usability fall short. Animals can’t fill out surveys or give us verbal insights. Their behaviors, while rich with meaning, often require interpretation.
So how do we responsibly and ethically design for beings we can’t directly interview?
The answer lies in a fundamental concept of robust design research: triangulation.
What Is Triangulation?
In the context of animal centered design, triangulation means using multiple sources, methods, and perspectives to understand the needs and experiences of animal users.
Instead of relying on a single approach like observation, expert input, or behavioral studies, we combine them. This creates a more layered, accurate, and ethically sound understanding of how an animal interacts with its environment, tools, and human counterparts.
Why Designing Across Species Requires Multiple Lenses
Designing for humans is already nuanced—but when we extend that practice to animals, we enter a world where our usual assumptions about feedback, communication, and usability fall short. Animals can’t fill out surveys or give us verbal insights. Their behaviors, while rich with meaning, often require interpretation.
So how do we responsibly and ethically design for beings we can’t directly interview?
The answer lies in a fundamental concept of robust design research: triangulation.
What Is Triangulation?
In the context of animal centered design, triangulation means using multiple sources, methods, and perspectives to understand the needs and experiences of animal users.
Instead of relying on a single approach like observation, expert input, or behavioral studies, we combine them. This creates a more layered, accurate, and ethically sound understanding of how an animal interacts with its environment, tools, and human counterparts.
Why Interspecies Design Is So Complex
Unlike human centered design, where designers often work within a shared cultural and cognitive framework, interspecies design has no such shortcut. The complexity arises from:
Species-specific perception (e.g., what a dog smells vs. what a human sees, or even what a dog smells vs. what a human smells!)
Non-verbal communication
Contextual behavioral patterns
Ethical considerations that must be adapted per species and context
No single method, be it observation, ethnography, or biometric tracking, can fully account for these variables. That’s why triangulation becomes essential: it allows us to cross-check insights, reduce bias, and deepen our understanding through contrast.
Triangulation in Practice
In real-world projects, this might look like:
Combining video analysis, caregiver interviews, and behavioral data to evaluate how a therapy dog interacts with a hospital environment.
Using ethological principles, sensor data, and contextual observations to inform the design of animal enrichment tools.
Layering design reflection, expert consultation, and animal welfare standards into each phase of a project.
Each layer adds dimension and helps mitigate the risk of misunderstanding or misrepresenting the animal user's needs.
Building Better Design Through Triangulation
Triangulation isn’t just about academic rigor. It’s a practical, compassionate tool for creating designs that truly serve animal well-being. It acknowledges the limits of our human perspective and offers a way to reach toward a more inclusive and species-aware design process.
In this way, triangulation becomes the backbone of ethical, effective, and creative animal centered design.