Trust-Based Design: Starting with Broken Trust

I’ve spent most of my career asking the same question: “What do people need?” It’s the starting point for almost every design process. From there, we gather insights, map needs, co-create solutions, and (on our best days) deliver outcomes that feel useful and meaningful. Done well, this kind of work can lead to trust. People feeling heard, supported, and included.

But here’s the problem: what happens when trust isn’t there to begin with?

In many of the spaces I work, such as healthcare, government, education, community services, digital platforms, the people most in need of change are often the least likely to trust the systems around them. And when we start by asking them what they need, the answers are shaped by that lack of trust.

The result? Solutions that miss the mark. Designs that reinforce the very conditions that broke trust in the first place. And instead of repairing trust, we accidentally deepen the fracture.

That’s why I’ve shifted my approach. Instead of starting with needs, I begin at the cracks, the places where trust has been lost, because that’s where the real design work begins.

Trust is a living relationship.

Trust isn’t something you win once and keep forever. It’s not a milestone you check off. Trust is alive. It’s part of a living relationship. That’s why I don’t think of trust as something to “achieve,” but as something to foster, steward, and continuously renew. Even the strongest relationships have ebbs and flows. Trust needs attention. It needs care. And when it’s broken, it needs repair.

In trust-based design, this cycle begins by identifying trust gaps, those fractures and blind spots where trust is weakest. But naming the gap is only the first step. Rebuilding means working directly with communities most in need of trust repair, creating the conditions where it feels safe enough for them to share their unfiltered truths and to co-create alongside us.

This is where the work is different. It’s not just about listening or collecting input. It’s about creating progress together, moving the needle in ways that show trust is worth offering again. That progress unlocks real co-design: not token consultation, but genuine collaboration that creates the safety needed for communities to bring their unfiltered ideas into the process.

Once that trust begins to take root, we can move into prototyping trust-building mechanisms: small, testable ways of working that can be refined and validated with the same communities. And it's only then that they become enduring practices, the things we can shape, activate, and scale responsibly.

Those practices ripple through the system, get activated, and are measured in real use. And that measurement often surfaces new trust gaps. This is where the infinity loop matters. Sometimes practices can move straight back into shaping, scaling, and activation. Other times the gaps are unclear, or the way forward is ambiguous. In these cases, the cycle pulls us back into re-identifying, and co-creating and prototyping all over again.

Trust doesn’t move in a straight line. It moves like a rhythm, with multiple possible paths: forward to scale, sideways to reshape, or back to uncovering new gaps. Like any living relationship, it asks us to adjust, repair, and grow. Again and again.

Trust is a need too, it's just fragile.

In design, we often start by identifying needs. We have a well-worn toolkit for this: usability tests, interviews, observations, and other methods that help us uncover where clarity is missing or where a process is breaking down. These approaches work well because many needs are sturdy enough to be investigated directly. People will readily point to a frustrating interface or an unclear step in a service.

Trust is different. Trust is a need too, but it can’t be explored in the same way. It doesn’t respond well to the same tools, because trust is fragile. It has to be invited, not probed. People are often reluctant, or even unable, to name where trust has been broken unless they feel safe enough to do so. And with communities who have experienced betrayed or withheld trust, that sense of safety isn’t just a detail; it’s the foundation for everything else.

That’s why trust-based design isn’t a departure from design as we know it, but a re-framing of the same process through a different lens. It’s still about identifying needs and co-creating with the people who hold them. But when the need is trust, it asks us to move more carefully: to create conditions for truth to emerge, to repair what’s been broken, and to steward that repair into resilience.

From betrayal to resilience: a spectrum of trust.

Trust isn’t all-or-nothing. It lives on a non-linear spectrum of states, each shaped by experience.

At one end is betrayed trust, where harm has been done, promises broken, or people excluded. From there comes withheld trust, a kind of guardedness, where people protect themselves by holding back. Sometimes we see emerging trust, when small signals of progress begin to take root. When those signals turn into consistent follow-through, we arrive at earned trust. And, over time, if that consistency holds, trust can become resilient and strong enough to withstand stress and setbacks without collapsing.

Scholars like Mayer, Davis, and Schoorman have shown that trust is rooted in ability, integrity, and benevolence. Those qualities explain why people trust or don’t. What the spectrum adds is a way to see how trust is experienced in practice, and to recognize that people can move back and forth along it depending on what they encounter.

That’s why trust-based design starts by asking: where are people on this spectrum, and what would it take to move even a little further toward resilience?

Provocation: stop designing for the majority.

In many contexts, designing for the majority works. When most people are already engaging, already trusting, and already adopting a service, focusing on their needs can be both efficient and effective. Traditional design thrives here.

Trust doesn’t always follow the majority. Sometimes the real fractures live at the margins, among the small groups with the least trust. And when those groups are ignored, the whole system stays fragile, no matter how well the majority is served.

Sometimes the least-trusting groups are small. Other times they’re the largest. Either way, trust-based design begins with them.

That’s why trust-based design begins with those who trust the least. Not because of their size, but because of their position. When we earn trust there, with people whose trust has been broken, withheld, or eroded, the entire system grows stronger. The ripple effects reach everyone.

This is also where Hostile Sheep thrives. We’re most energized when the work requires creating the conditions for trust to be rebuilt: when systems are fragile, when voices are guarded, when the easy answers don’t hold. These are the challenges we’re uniquely equipped for, and the ones that drive our passion.

The cracks in trust are showing everywhere.

We don’t have to look far to see it. Trust has been neglected for too long, and the cracks are widening. Entire communities live with a constant state of distrust, not because they want to, but because they’ve been given little reason to believe otherwise. Organizations have betrayed their customers’ trust and carried on as if nothing happened. Some, like Volkswagen, have paid billions after breaking that trust, only to be welcomed back by forgiving markets and forgetful consumers.

The truth is, we’re a society quick to forgive, quick to forget, and slow to hold institutions accountable. But broken trust doesn’t disappear. It lingers just below the surface, unresolved, waiting to erupt. And when it does, the consequences can ripple through entire systems.

That’s why trust-based design matters now. It’s not just a method, it’s a response to the world we’re living in, a world where trust can no longer be treated as an afterthought. Repairing trust means starting with those who trust the least, creating conditions for their voices to be heard, and building practices that hold up even under strain.

Because when trust is rebuilt at the margins, the whole system grows stronger. And in a time when the cracks in trust are showing everywhere, that kind of repair work isn’t just important. It’s essential.