Thinking Cap #6 #144
Replies: 18 comments 27 replies
-
|
The design justice framework resonated with me, and it connected nicely with last week's thinking cap re: ethics -- in particular, the idea that "good intentions are not necessarily enough to ensure that design processes and practices become tools of liberation" (p. 1). What I appreciate the most about that statement is similar to what I wrote last week: inaction at the face of injustice is unethical. From the design perspective, the connection I made is that design that isn't undoing the matrix of domination is not advancing liberation. I think the implications of this statement for our group projects is quite profound, as it forces us to see how ever aspect of our project, from the web design choices made, to the ways the surveys are presented and the uses of our websites all have liberatory potential. It's on us as designers to carefully assess the ways in which our own intersecting identities have informed every choice we made in the project along the way. With this honest, self-reflective and intentional approach we can design projects that instead of reflecting the world as is, they reflect the world we envision. On a more personal note, this paper challenged me to expand my understanding of design. In full transparency, I've never thought about design very much. I thought the paper was going to be jargony and full of references to things I don't understand (computer things, specifically). But the section that discusses "the universality of design as a human activity" made me think a lot about the inherent bias in my assumption that design is only done by designers within the confines of institutions. I am grateful to be able to reevaluate my own assumptions about this topic. |
Beta Was this translation helpful? Give feedback.
-
|
I also share the same sentiment as you because I never about about design or its implications on communities before. However, after reading this paper, I realized how a design has the potential to cause harm to a community whether it is intentional or not. This realization is especially important for our group projects because we are creating and designing things that affect marginalized communities. There is a matrix of domination that is at play, but as designers, we should keep thinking about ways to uplift and empower our communities. A way to uplift our communities as opposed to harming them goes back to the point that you made about our designs being self-reflective and intentional. We want to make sure that everything we do is part of the design justice framework in which we are actually creating things that benefit the community and empowering them to share their stories. |
Beta Was this translation helpful? Give feedback.
-
|
I also thought that the broad definition of designer was really interesting! It's definitely a word that has come to refer to very specific professions in common usage, but weaving is designing, planting crops is designing, managing your time is designing, etc. I also really appreciate your phrasing that you are grateful to be able to reevaluate assumptions, it's very in-line with so many of the ideas in this class. Years ago I realized how grateful I am to be able to change my mind or have my mind changed--it means I am learning, hopefully, rather than remaining stuck in a certain way of thinking. |
Beta Was this translation helpful? Give feedback.
-
|
I can also relate to you in terms of how I expected myself to read the paper, as I usually spend quite an amount of time to get through readings since it's difficult to process some computation terms in my head. However, it was really interesting to see design justice written in this perspective with the concepts of intersectionality throughout the paper. The paper does remind me of how the artistic (architecture, specifically) concept of minimalism can be exclusionary to people of lower socioeconomic classes, especially with the way minimalism has an intent for modernization that can be difficult to achieve for lower income communities. |
Beta Was this translation helpful? Give feedback.
-
|
Design justice is what everyone should strive to uphold when creating or designing technology or applications that will be released to the public. There are structures of oppression in which institutions try to use race, class, and gender to try to keep minorities out and it is so important to think about how these institutions use designs to further this agenda of gatekeeping. Oftentimes, people who have the ability to design things, such as software or architecture, are trying to find the quickest and simplest solutions to solve problems without thinking about or understanding the repercussions on marginalized communities because it is ultimately marginalized communities that get affected the most. This is exemplified when Facebook trained their algorithms to recognize “real” names by feeding them European names, which prevents people such as Native Americans and other people of color from creating a Facebook that embodies who they are. Whether this was deliberate or accidental, it played a role in furthering systematic oppression of marginalized communities. As a result, people who have the privilege to design should think about promoting design justice and focusing on how their designs can empower underrepresented communities and highlight their voices. Moving forward, I want to think about the underrepresented community that I am focusing on (ex: elderly and women) and think about ways to implement design justice to empower my community to share their stories and ensure that they/their stories are respected. This can be practiced by...
|
Beta Was this translation helpful? Give feedback.
-
|
I like your point about trying to find the quickest and simplest solutions. Instant gratification definitely has an appeal! But thinking about complicating problems or issues rather than simplifying them is important to avoid reductionism and essentialism--the world is a complex place! Similarly, rather than attempting to "solve a problem," I think goals like to empower communities or create spaces where stories can be shared, as in your 5th point, are probably more realistic, more helpful, and more respectful. |
Beta Was this translation helpful? Give feedback.
-
|
I think that design justice is an important framework to help us step back and question even the small details of what we are creating. I learned that the phrase "nothing about us, without us" comes from the disability justice movement. I think this is an incredibly important concept. It concisely rejects the savior complex and promotes experiential knowledge, which is key to avoiding technocratic solutions. The histories of both technology and public policy are full of mistakes and unintended consequences, many of which probably could have been avoided had this framework been adopted. |
Beta Was this translation helpful? Give feedback.
-
|
The quote that you found is great! It really drives home the point that technology can be used to create profitable solutions that don't really solve any social problems, but rather exacerbates them. People who are creating or contributing to these applications, such as Airbnb, Amazon, and the $50 vaccine website, are partaking in the matrix of domination and hurting communities. These institutions are consistently keeping out and oppressing people of a certain race, class, and gender whether that be in their application design, usability, and accessibility. As a result, it is important as designers to acknowledge that these structural forms of oppression are in place and it is our responsibility to think carefully about the impact of our designs to ensure that whatever we are creating are benefiting communities, enabling/empowering these communities to tell their stories, and showing that they matter too. |
Beta Was this translation helpful? Give feedback.
-
|
It was very interesting to read this article, Design Justice, because it immediately began opening my eyes to everyday design flaws and inequalities I hadn't been aware of before. As people have mentioned above, I am realizing how I've failed to critically understand the far-reaching impacts of design and the process that precedes it. In the article, the section that particularly resonated with me talked about the values and assumptions encoded in designed objects and processes. I felt it was very important for me to understand the connections being made here, specifically the need to consider "the transformative potential of broader participation in the design process, as well as ownership and stewardship of the results." Over the course of this class, I have already been growing more in my awareness of accessibility, usability, readability, and more through the goals of my group project: "Reimagining 6th Street". This quote even further ties together the overall intention of our project which is to build a survey/website with the community so the results can highlight community-based interests and priorities. This is designed in hopes of ultimately reinstating ownership of 6th street, and more broadly the city as a whole, back into the hands of the community. Our critical design-based efforts have included implementing person/community first language, in the form of survey design as well as in access to the survey. We will be providing 3 surveys in English, Español, and 한국어 which will be named respectively to promote the usability of the website to the various community members located in Ktown. Personally, I see myself implementing and forever working to protect and prioritize the needs of users/viewers/etc of my maps, surveys, and overall work by being consciously aware of the further impacts of my contributions and creations. I work every day to be aware of and avoid my implicit bias' and decrease ignorance so that I do not actively perpetuate inequality or unequal power relationships and I will continue to do so in all aspects of my design processes. |
Beta Was this translation helpful? Give feedback.
-
|
I really resonated with your point about how you didn't see the impacts of design before reading about design justice, because I felt the same way. The way that you design something can really change the way that people interact with your programs, and it is definitely something you have to think about before you start creating the actual design. I also really like how you talked about your personal experience with the project! It really puts things into perspective when you have to actually apply these concepts to an actual project, and I think that those are some really great ways to apply Design Justice. |
Beta Was this translation helpful? Give feedback.
-
|
Designing justice is a tool that is very important but can be easily overlooked. I agree with the article that design process should consider users as the main target, while recognizing social benefits and reducing exclusion. We all have bias and we come from different background. It is easy to design based on our background which may not apply to the society that we are working for. Thus, I think that practicing design justice is essential. Although it can be argued that it is impossible to include everyone in the society, including as many people as possible is still better than including only a few people. One way that I can think about designing in the future with designing justice is creating website with disability accessibility. I am not sure where I have seen this, but people with disability often rely on html tag when they use website. However, most website do not design the tag according to "importance" of content. So when those people navigate through the website, it is much more difficult to identify where is the content, ads, video, etc. |
Beta Was this translation helpful? Give feedback.
-
|
I really appreciate how you acknowledged that all of us bring our own biases to design. To that point, I think design justice demands that designers hold themselves accountable to the users being designed for, which in all cases should be the most marginalized groups of civil society. I also greatly value the intention you bring to creating websites with disability accessibility. This isn't a design intention I'd thought about for our site yet and is now something I hope to implement! Your points of inclusivity add to the lenses with which I see design justice. In addition to being a revolutionary tool of reclaiming design from the matrix of domination, design justice is also a tool of inclusivity. This creates greater community and a feeling of belonging across the spheres of design (whether it be on the internet or in other areas of society). Since design defines folks' perspectives of certain initiatives and projects, design justice has the power to build coalitions across various identities for important issues that affect civil society. When combined with other tools, design justice can be a tool of liberation. |
Beta Was this translation helpful? Give feedback.
-
|
The hottest trend of UI/UX will always claim to be doing the most for user experience, but they more or less appeal to the large number of internet users who benefit from the matrix of domination. The dominant social group of a country will always benefit from designs because the design will always be geared towards them. Design justice seeks to rectify the failings by creating awareness for all folx, ensuring an equitable experience for people on the internet. Yet, technology in itself will always be inherently inequitable, as the paper pointed out. Depending on the living situations and the environment one grows up in, affluence will always lead to a greater foothold in technology, and thus, more opportunities will be given to those who are more "experienced." The argument against diversity seems to have a strong foothold, regardless of what corporations might say about it. If diversity does not sustain capitalistic endeavors, then it is more likely to be shelved as an action item until the ideals of diversity in itself are commodified. The paper really brings up a good point in which the imagined users of a design will tend to be the dominant society that will tend to be straight white middle-class men with numerous societal benefits such as education and citizenship. Design that doesn't gear towards this target audience may fail capitalistically, which can entirely doom a project that may have produced "good" in society. Design justice is difficult because it requires patience and participatory community involvement. Without input from the community that ultimately unravels the various systems of oppression and the matrix of domination, design justice will be an idealization. It is crucial that, in empowering a community, information and techniques to advance in the world of technology are facilitated and not handed down through an expert gaze. Saviorism is inherently a problem for those who have community involvement, but true change is through facilitation and establishing a cornerstone of change through the right medium. A 1970s Scandanavian idea of participatory design has evolved so that there can be an innovation to a system in which true justice can be found in a country's legal system. Through envisionment design workshops, many service users, design facilitators, and service providers can provide feedback to improve a system, so as to continuously improve the system to ensure the right people are vindicated and that criminals can serve their just crimes. The two other actions from which participatory design stems are co-design jams, which combines stakeholders and other users to create a prototype to use for a pilot system, and living lab model, which involves neighborhood interaction for policy suggestions (Hagen 2019). These three models are decent but they have serious flaws in all of them as well. Envisionment design workshops doesn't help when the system is broken, co-design jams involves a "higher-up" and people who might subscribe to capitalistic ideals, and the living lab model may be intrusive and it seemed as not enough trust has been established to truly help a community. An ideal model would accommodate all of these models while centering the work on the community and with every decision made combatting the matrix of domination. Continuous feedback, co-design jams that allow for the creativity of hackathons, and living lab models where members of the community are cared for so that they voluntarily give out their true viewpoints. Going forward with designs, I aim to center the methodology based on a community-level and to really absorb what the needs of the communities actually are, not what I think looks "nice" and "trendy." Understanding where my implicit bias lies in the decisions I make will ultimately be crucial in allowing me and other colleagues that I work with to produce an equitable product. The work of this paper is viable for the communities that I help lead, in which all organizations ought to be mindful of the goal they set for themselves, which should be to empower the community. Resources |
Beta Was this translation helpful? Give feedback.
-
|
Thank you for your post! You bring up a lot of issues with executing participatory design -- for often executing principles of justice can be difficult to enact properly. Many of the flaws you highlight with these participatory methods are the inherent power imbalance that are nonetheless baked into methods such as co-design jams and living labs, which propose a strategy for change that is prescribed by the researchers or people with capital means to push their own agendas. This makes me wonder what truly decentralized design can look like, and how multiple opposing views on justice and equity can be reconciled in the development of a legal system or any other societal institutions. Your response makes me wonder what circumstances drove this innovation in the Scandinavian legal system, and how successful the resulting innovations have been in creating a more equitable justice system. |
Beta Was this translation helpful? Give feedback.
-
|
The risk of failing capitalistically is definitely something that discourages good work from being done in the tech space when it comes to promoting social good endeavors. Even when we consider that there are people in privileged positions who are experts in the tech space with access to a wider variety of tools and education, there are societal circumstances that hinder them from being able to use those tools in a productive manner that we should strive to overcome. The different models of participatory design workshops are also very interesting ideas and I agree with your proposals on modifying them in order to create a more singular, ideal community design model. But, I think that on their own, they're still very useful ways of introducing novice designers to the idea of human-centered design that accounts for the nuance and diversity of competing thoughts. It's very easy, I think, for most people to get tunnel-visioned into an idea of doing good for a specific group they imagine in their head by following the bureaucratic hierarchies of design with higher-ups and large organizations that they're familiar with. Exposure to alternative methods of design and the pros and con's of them would definitely be helpful in easing people into a community-first mindset. |
Beta Was this translation helpful? Give feedback.
-
|
I found this concept to be especially intriguing; the concept of design justice was one that I immediately associated with urban planning and the way we structure cities and transportation systems to be (in)accessible to those who are most marginalized. The full reading on Design Justice highlights how typical attempts to create equitable cities involve consulting multiple stakeholders, but in a conversation usually ultimately directed by the professional designers. Rather, design justice "might engage with all these kinds of actors in the research phase, but then work closely with, and under the leadership of, organizations that represent those most directly harmed by gentrification and displacement." There is significantly more emphasis and purposeful uplifting of those who have been the most harmed, actively involving them in the process -- in order to reverse that harm and enact justice. This brings to mind the writings of Leslie Kern, who wrote Feminist City: Claiming Space in a Man-made World, where she highlights the way in which the urban spaces we live in are built with the man as the basic unit, without uplifting the needs of the (increasingly racialized) feminine bodies in our cities. As much as city planners may strive to make cities more equitable, how can someone without the lived experience to being a woman (especially one of color), truly design and implement spaces that represent their needs? Kern draws to attention the ways that women navigate public spaces that are not necessarily rectified by the male-dominated spheres of urban planning and architecture, whether it be grated floors (which pose problems for people who wear skirts, have young children, or use disability mobility devices), lack adequate safety measures (beyond law enforcement presence) to enforce a culture of security on public transportation at night, or implement more streetlights and wider sidewalks (since women, especially those who are caregivers or domestic workers, are more likely to be pedestrians or use public transit than men). Or even the premium placed on single-family homes that uplift heteronormative ideas of family. The oversight of the needs of this subset of people contributes to the white supremacist and patriarchal forms of violence that are easily overlooked -- for they may not necessarily be the direct result of individual actors, but of the systems and spaces in which we occupy. Though the built environment may appear to be static, it nonetheless facilitates further forms of violence and oppression. Design justice and prerogatives to integrate gender/critical race/disability/queer studies into design looks beyond just intent to create more equitable digital and physical spaces spaces (which impact often falls short of). Rather, it places importance on the empowerment and uplifting of voices throughout design, decisionmaking, implementation, and evaluation. Hence, the questions that the Design Justice reading are definitely ones that I want to carry forward with the design and implementation of our project: considering those designing the survey, its beneficiaries, its encoded values, scope, sites, ownership, accountability, political economy, and discourse. These are questions that are helpful to bring to critique any structures or relationships that may uphold unjust hierarchies in our society. But they are especially helpful in making sure that moving forward, I'm not assuming that my good intent will necessarily result in a just impact. Rather, understanding that the experiences of other intersections of SEA identity are ones that I cannot assume that I am making space for. As much as I can, drawing from the direct voices of others whose experiences are different from my own, is crucial to uplift all voices, but especially those who often are unheard in the digital space. And for those we may fail to account for, being careful to be humble, willing to rectify those errors, and making space for them. |
Beta Was this translation helpful? Give feedback.
-
|
There definitely should be an awareness whenever it comes to decision making and evaluating, as without enough care, it could create harm and misrepresent various communities. I definitely agree with the correlation (or lack of it) that impact and intent have with one another, and it is not addressed enough during the creation process in technology (or just in general). I love the comparison that you made between the impacts of design justice and Feminist City: Claiming Space in a Man-made World, by the way (and thank you for a new read to add on my book list :') I'm definitely going to look into it)! |
Beta Was this translation helpful? Give feedback.
-
|
Yes!! Verso Books publishes some really cool content, would recommend if you're into stuff like this!! |
Beta Was this translation helpful? Give feedback.
-
|
Really fantastic post Emily, per usual! This is a really good example of a heteropatriarchy and how urban planning has been made to suit the need of a heterosexual man. When speaking about urban spaces, I cannot help but to think about the idea of a third place, or a neutral space that the government provides so as people can gather and socialize. Yet, there is much need for safety measures because a third place can also be an unsafe place to socialize, which denigrates its inherent value (Yoval 2020). To reimagine safety measures in order to dismantle the dominant heteropatriarchy mindset is a necessity in order for there to be an equitable society. What good is our society today if we cannot even provide a level of safety to all communities? Sources |
Beta Was this translation helpful? Give feedback.
-
|
Design justice makes me recognize even more on the various applications that intersectionality has within technology and the workings of it, as well as helped me relearn my understanding of the phrase “impact over intent.” I definitely didn’t realize how subconsciously integrated the “imagined user” implicit biases are when it comes to technology and the overall effect that capitalism and the overall racial hierarchy have whenever higher authority or people in charge have to think about who they are targeting with their design processes and products. Although it was never the intent to be exclusionary, the implicit biases from the people as higher authority in the technology industry transcends into design and then to the overall products. Moving forward, I am not entirely sure how exactly to apply to the project’s design, but I know that the main thing will be having to keep in mind about how and whether the design will benefit the community I am aiming towards rather than just myself. In any case, I will take accountability for anything that may have led to things that did not go right. In any case, it is always best to make sure the design is kept in a way that is easy and accessible for communities to express their stories and that any design on the website will not hinder people who visit the website or trying to use it from doing such simply because of the lack of inaccessibility. |
Beta Was this translation helpful? Give feedback.
-
|
I agree with your point about the "imaginary user." In my head sometimes the imaginary user is just like me! Which is so far from the truth most times. Being accessible to all and giving people power to voice opinions and thoughts and stories regardless of class, race, gender, ability, religion, etc is so important and allows us to imagine and create a more equitable world. As designers we must be aware of our position of privilege and use it for good! |
Beta Was this translation helpful? Give feedback.
-
|
There's a section in the Design Justice document that specifically focuses on the idea of the users who're the audience/targets of things that get designed. There's a conflict of interest in the software development space that puts the idea of "things people want" versus "things people need" that tend to dominate the line of thinking that goes into the development of new products and services. We tend to associate the two different ideas being basically the same thing, and in some cases they are, depending on who the "people" you're developing for. From what I understand about current design trends in UI/UX, there's a lot more emphasis nowadays on the idea of empathizing with the "user" of the product you want to develop, which means trying to imagine yourself in their place and thus creating a product that you, yourself, would use if you are the type of user that you are researching. As good of an idea as that sounds on paper, as it does promote healthier ways of developing for society by placing components of society first, rather than just "think of a problem you know others are facing and try to solve it with tech," it definitely comes with problems when it comes to the ideology behind design justice. For one, it places the developer in the mindset that they are trying to act as the solution to a societal problem rather than a facilitator in the process of resolving the issue. Moreover, the more commercial-minded nature of the tech industry means that designers are more likely to gain experience and become familiar with focusing on problems that are commercially-viable to develop towards. This goes back to the problem of designing to develop "things people want" versus "things people need" as those ideas are definitely at odds with each other despite beliefs that they can co-exist. It's important, therefore, that design considers a larger picture when it comes to how and for who they develop, as the process of design can just as easily hurt groups of people and communities despite whatever kind of "empathy" that a designer might have for them. Ideally, for designs going forward, it'd make the most sense for most developers to be active and attenuative listeners in the communities that they are designing for. It's important to reach out to parts of the community in need and make them feel comfortable discussing their needs and encouraging them to acquire the means to change their circumstances. A typical designer could easily sit down on a computer and Google some relevant statistics and data about the communities they develop for, maybe even collect user story testimonies on community message boards or non-profit organizations in their area, but that still just paints a very small scope of the communities they're investigating and working for. In the case I mentioned, they'd only focus on the needs of people with web access and the knowledge and motivation to use those avenues of voicing their personal concerns. Typically, people have many avenues from which they can try and listen to the community, whether it be through actual non-profit/humanitarian work they do, through regular gathers in the form of community tech events or church, or anything else that might not have crossed my mind as examples of ways to engage and listen to communities. |
Beta Was this translation helpful? Give feedback.
-
|
You bring up an important point about developers and designers to be attentive listeners to the community they serve! Creating an environment that people can feel comfortable sharing in is critical -- and usually this is one that can only be created when the community trusts the developer and people performing research, which is something that can be facilitated through a genuine interest in the people that they are designing for (over being motivated solely by commercial incentive) or having a personal connection to the community or the space. If one does not have the lived experience to provide accurate and just input regarding a tool, the connection with those who do is crucial. |
Beta Was this translation helpful? Give feedback.
-
|
This was a great read! Design Justice calls back to our conversation about ethics last week and how it is imperative we must ask ourselves who are we serving, who's story is being told, who's getting paid to do what work, etc. The "matrix of domination" was a really interesting term I have never read before and brought up a very good point about location in this matrix, how your position corresponds to your experiences of penalty and privilege. As a low-income woman of color, I've experienced plenty of penalty, but have also received plenty of privilege as an able-bodied student at a prestigious university. Design Justice calls to question basically everything we know and how we understand the world around us. A friend of mine once gave me a really insightful perspective about disability, and how people do not suffer disabilities but the world around them disables them. As designers and creators, we must be thoughtful of how our work can empower or disable communities. Design Justice calls upon designers everywhere, and that is all of us as we have the power to design our worlds in day to day actions, to be aware of our position in the matrix of domination and design a world that is inclusive, accessible, and cooperative. This paper on Design Justice serves as a necessary reminder in my work in this class and any future projects about how to be cognizant of the processes of production and design in technology and the world. |
Beta Was this translation helpful? Give feedback.
-
|
I agree, I believe that Design Justice is definitely a very important concept especially as designers who are trying to create projects to empower communities. It's important to remember those who are being directly impacted by the designs we make, and to keep them at the top of our priority list, rather than as an afterthought. I also like your point about the article, and it is definitely a great way to help us keep things in perspective, and to remember that not everyone sees the world the way that we personally do. |
Beta Was this translation helpful? Give feedback.
-
|
I think that, given the focus in the course on mapping concepts and applicability, the emphasis lended to the reader through Hill-Collins (2002) focus on situated knowledge at the micro, meso, and macro levels gives us insight as to how design justice can be applied directly in the course. Given previous examples of intellectual property and its fraudulent adaptations by contemporary designers, we must revisit what situated knowledge looks like for us and its implications for design justice during the neoliberal turn. |
Beta Was this translation helpful? Give feedback.
-
|
Exploring the two websites you mentioned was an interesting experience for me. I was never a fan of hats, but it will be interesting moving forward to see companies partner up with New Era or other major hat retailers to empower communities and culture around the world. It will also be cool to see a storyline behind each hat's design and to see the impact of these products. |
Beta Was this translation helpful? Give feedback.
-
|
I think design justice is an incredibly important field of theory and practice. Design justice forces me to push the bounds of critique with which I approach my own designs, and forces me to hold myself to a standard of community based design traditions, knowledge, and practices. I think design justice is tied to the holist solutions to social issues outlined in last week’s readings. Design is one tool which, when combined with other resources and assets, can be used to solve the issues faced by civil society’s most marginalized groups. Design justice demands that the field of design be reclaimed from the matrix of domination. I will apply design justice in my designs going forward by modeling my design work after the products of the Design Justice Network outlined in the article. More broadly, I hope to hold my designs accountable to the community based design traditions outlined above to ensure my work always authentically serves civil society. |
Beta Was this translation helpful? Give feedback.
-
|
@lvalles10 When reading the design justice paper, I was actually reminded specifically of your thinking cap last week! |
Beta Was this translation helpful? Give feedback.
-
|
I agree that design justice, and this class in general, has pushed me to think more critically in terms of my own designs and how I interact with designs made by others. I like that you discuss how design is a tool because I think that it is important to acknowledge and be aware that design can be used in both positive and negative ways just as can be done with technology in general. That is what this article most opened my eyes to, the fact that I often glaze over how impactful certain elements of websites, surveys, etc can be to people other than myself. I agree with you that going forward I am going to be holding my creations/designs accountable to their further impacts, especially in relation to making sure they work with communities/humans and serve civil society as a whole. |
Beta Was this translation helpful? Give feedback.
-
|
I think the design justice article is a really important tool because it outlines subtle ways that bias can work its way into tech. It reminds us that the driving causes of biased design are oppressive systems, so we should focus on things that’ll benefit people in the long term instead of quick, flashy fixes. The part about accountability really resonated with me, and it made me think of the way we do user stories/personas. The point is to try to understand the perspective of a user, but I can see how well-intentioned user stories can become patronizing if the imaginary user is part of a marginalized group that the designer is not. (Not a dig at user stories — I think they’re really useful to the design process; the article just helped me realize just how much trying to understand falls short, and how much is impossible without diverse teams). Another example of flawed design is UCLA’s preferred name system — even if you change your preferred name, there still are a lot of (non-financial/legal) communications that use your legal name, and I believe BruinCards required legal names to be printed on the back until recently. While the inconsistencies might be due to technical issues or old clunky databases, it goes to show how the system wasn’t designed with certain groups in mind (not just trans people, but also just people who prefer a different name for any reason). One of my takeaways is that it’s not enough to just do what you think you need to do to get an app up and running. I feel like in the tech world, there’s a mentality of making things as fast/efficient as possible, which leaves certain user groups behind. But even from a purely tech perspective, it makes sense to spend extra time and effort on accessibility — it’s harder to retrofit systems than to make them inclusive from the start. Apart from involving diverse teams in the design/build process, I think it’s important to actively learn about both tech and non-tech things even after graduating, because we can only improve if we stay accountable and keep challenging our biases. |
Beta Was this translation helpful? Give feedback.
-
|
In this era, I feel like we want everything now and we want to get things done now. And technological advancements just fuel the human desire to want things now! Just look at the financial design that created credit cards, they let people buy things right away using money that they do not have. I totally agree with your statement on being fast and efficient will leave potentially leave groups behind. |
Beta Was this translation helpful? Give feedback.
-
|
I like how you brought up the flaw with UCLA's preferred name system. I had never even stopped to consider how many legal loopholes an individual might have to face in order to do something that is simply a part of their identity. Clearly, there are gaps in even the most updated technology where users are faced with issues that could be handled if someone (i.e. a developer) had thought critically about the service they were offering. The point you bring up about tech and non-tech aspects of society also is an excellent point! We should focus on the problems, issues, and non-tech aspects of this world when creating tech solutions. At the end of the day, if more people thought critically about these problems, I feel as though there would be less inequity around the world. |
Beta Was this translation helpful? Give feedback.
-
|
I like how you pointed out that writing user stories about a group you're not part of will inevitably result in gaps in understanding and that it's most effective to design having an inclusive system in mind. I think it's wonderful now that it's becoming more widespread knowledge that accessibility and inclusion is important, but I've noticed that at least from what social media sites I've seen make some changes, their changes to make things more inclusive inadvertently marginalize people further. For example, Instagram just added a "pronouns" section to people's bios, but you can only select pronouns from their list of pronouns. Just a random other thought: alt text and image descriptions are thought of inconvenient to add but important in making things accessible, but I don't know of any sites that actively require them. I would think that adding it in as a requirement would make users unhappy, but if it were an expectation from the start... |
Beta Was this translation helpful? Give feedback.
-
|
Design justice’s focus on marginalized voices and rethinking of “traditional” mainstream design practices so as to not support existing power structures is in line with the goal of serving civil society. I like how it emphasized that impact doesn’t match intent (haha that’s what I wrote in my last thinking cap!) Some ideas that were particularly eye-opening for me include the following: that “social impact design” and “design for good” frame intent over impact, that we can imagine the “designer as a facilitator rather than an expert,” and that “everyone is an expert based on their own lived experience.” Another quote I liked is “There is nothing wrong with making things people want. It’s just that too little attention is paid to the things people need” (Penny, 2014). (Side note: I enjoy the term “matrix of domination” as I think it’s really apt in describing how different issues of oppression are connected and also because I’ve been staring at matrices all day for linear algebra.) I think I need to sit with the material and let it stew in my brain for a long time to unlearn my assumptions and preconceptions about design. I think it’ll be something I’ll have to keep coming back to. I read Demystifying the Digital Divide (Scientific American, August 2003) for Information Studies 20: Digital Cultures and Societies last weekend, and it has a pretty good quote: “The key issue is not unequal access to computers but rather the unequal ways that computers are used.” It includes the example of the hole-in-the-wall computer project in New Delhi as a consequence of technological determinism and failure to support the community’s needs. Those spearheading the initiative did not reach out to organizations that could support children in increasing their technological literacy, and the education programs on those computers were in English rather than Hindi. Rather than learning about computing, the children ended up playing games and drawing on the computers instead. I remember I attended a Zoom info session for a tech organization at UCLA, and someone asked what they would do for people without access to internet/phones/etc. that they were making their applications on, and they were just kinda like “We don’t know, we haven’t considered that.” I don’t want to make assumptions, but after what we’ve covered in the past few weeks, I’m a little dubious about how helpful they are to the communities they design applications for. I’m not sure if the many applications these tech organizations put out each quarter are actively maintained either... I will use the principles behind design justice in considering what initiatives I offer my time and effort to. |
Beta Was this translation helpful? Give feedback.
-
|
Two things that you bring up that are really important: the Penny quote and your personal anecdote. It seems that, despite all of the theories that we learn to put into place, the prevailing thought is that there will always be a gap in which there are individuals that will not have the technology in order to get what they need. Technologisization is inevitable, and the gap that increases between people who have the technology and who lack technology will be increasing as well. COVID-19 has already exacerbated the digital divide, as people who cannot afford technology or have a good WiFi connection will miss out on more than a year of quality education, which impacts their course of life. |
Beta Was this translation helpful? Give feedback.
-
|
You bring up a really important point that /how/ we try to bridge the technological divide is just as important as the technology put into an initiative! I really related to what you said about having to unlearn preconceptions; I feel like part of this is because of the way a traditional STEM education (thinking about CS in particular) is tied into what giant corporations want out of us, both as workers and consumers. I don't know if this was your intention, but I also found the part about carefully choosing which projects to contribute to a really good way to combat the indecision/fatigue that comes from seeing so many problems and projects. |
Beta Was this translation helpful? Give feedback.
-
|
I really liked the quote from Penny you mention. I feel as though it helps shine a light on how important design is to people who need certain things to be conveyed. Aesthetics aside, design can sometimes unintentionally (or intentionally) ostracize certain groups and communities. What we must look towards is bridging the gap between design and user to ensure that people are becoming less divided. We could achieve this with technology, or by potentially bringing the internet to impoverished areas as a means of bridging the technological divide that exists around the world. |
Beta Was this translation helpful? Give feedback.
-
|
I think that design justice is really important because it forces you to think about the impact that the choices you make in your have on the community. Just like the prompt from last week, I believe that we as programmers should be held accountable for the work that we publish/make available to the public, because everything that we make has an impact on others, whether it be good or bad. The same goes for design, as design is an integral part of anything that we make. I thought that the reading this week was really interesting, and it shed a lot of light on ideas I never really thought about before. One such example is how Laurie Penny distinguished between wants and needs when deciding on what to make. Especially in our capitalist society, it's much more attractive to people to make things people want, because those with wants typically have money to spend to make them into reality, as opposed to making things that people need. Moving forward, I want to apply design justice to designs that I create by being conscious about the people using my programs need that would allow them to be able to get the most out of it. I need to become more aware of what difficulties certain demographics in my users may face while using my program and create features in my program that will help them. I want to produce designs that will empower people, and I believe that this will help me in my journey to reaching this goal. |
Beta Was this translation helpful? Give feedback.
-
|
As you mentioned above, design justice goes beyond the apolitical and forces you to think explicitly about the impact and access that our work has on the communities we have immediate to us. It definitely seems that accountability has been an important theme to the course. One of the first examples we received from a guest in the course was during our introduction on survey design, and how we can develop them in a fashion that are responsible and actively listening to the community. |
Beta Was this translation helpful? Give feedback.
-
|
Design justice is a long-awaited theory and practice that this society needed for a long time. The first thing that came to mind for me was Aunt Jemima products with their criticisms. Aunt Jemima's history as a brand has ties to slavery which many people criticized for having a black woman as their "slave mascot". There were many talks on what if the parent company should scratch the whole brand or replace the brand's mascot. However recently, I came across an Aunt Jemima product and saw that they have erased the black woman from their product and only "Aunt Jemima" is left. If you explore auntjemima.com, they are soon rebranding to "Pearl Mining Company". Designs are everywhere we see from the clock that we tell our time by to the design layout of a supermarket are all designs that if we are not careful can perpetuate harm and inherent bias. For designers, architectures, and UX/UI engineers there is no better time for all of them to work together to create designs that uplift the community and encourage those that are marginalized through their work. Recognizing that residues of systemic racism are still lingering in our society and learning/applying best practices are so important to advance the progress to equity and equality for everyone. Keeping in mind design justice for my future and projects now, I need to constantly remind myself that not everyone thinks like me and that the purpose of my projects is to help and serve people, not to further marginalize a community. Designs in my website projects should achieve easiness and simplicity for users and new users to understand the purpose of each click of a button. Each click of a button should be transparent and communicative aiming to build a connection with anyone and everyone that the site interacts with. |
Beta Was this translation helpful? Give feedback.
-
|
@okcirE, I like that you explored this from a marketing front as a means to illustrate this end in design justice. The article provided another example with Facebook's identification of non-European leaning names as "false accounts," beyond conversations surrounding capitalism, develop for us the long-lasting reliance on whiteness as the front in marketing. It develops the values that we adapt around what we "should" or "should not" aspire to embody, and there is not as much to revolve around for design and its diversity over time. |
Beta Was this translation helpful? Give feedback.
-
|
I believe design justice plays an important role in promoting both equity and equality around us. We must work towards creating ethical designs that work towards being more inclusive for all groups. Design goes further than just architecture but is also in the way we interact with applications online. We must embrace the notion that "good intentions are not necessarily enough to ensure that design processes and practices become tools of liberation." Designers must be self-reflective and strive to push forward both equity and equality in what they create. I intend on being more vocal with design justice in the way my team formulates our survey design. We will focus on ensuring that the translated languages we provide all are true to their word and convey the same thoughts. UI/UX is an excellent way to push forward design justice and prevent injustice. By creating designs that uplift communities and prevent marginalization design can be used to target systemized racism. This paper helped me get a better understanding of the nuances that are conveyed with any design. Whether it is purposeful or not, every design carries some level of bias. By aiming to recognize this bias, and creating solutions to target bias we can aim to create a sense of transparency and connectivity between users and product. As the paper mentions, design is a human activity, and as such the design we continue to make in the future should be inclusive of all humans. |
Beta Was this translation helpful? Give feedback.
-
|
I have to say that I think the survey design task we had from class was a really good way of addressing and forcing us to think about our own personal biases when it comes to how we normally try to approach communities problem. I also agree that transparency is a very important part of trying to reduce bias in the designs we make, as discussing our ideas and constantly communicating them to other people does help us try to understand a bigger picture of what audience we're trying to be inclusive of in the software and web tools we create. |
Beta Was this translation helpful? Give feedback.
-
|
The design justice reading was one of my favorites in the course so far. While the course/this week's reading focuses more on design justice in software/web applications, I felt that a lot of the tenets of design justice draw from the goals of good public policy. Considerations of what the goals of implementation are, assumptions one might be making, and the very real possibility of unintended harmful consequences are all important when there is you have power. I took Econ 111 (Theories of Economic Growth and Development) last year, and . You get the general gist of the talk within the first few minutes, and I've included a screenshot of the somewhat viral hippo story the presenter shares. It perfectly displays how, both in tech and in social work broadly, those trying to solve the problem are well intentioned, but rarely understand the problem they are trying to solve because they fail to collaborate and listen to the community members.
With designing applications (both for this course and for future projects), really emphasizing and taking on a humble approach to user research will lead to informed designs. Both researching existing literature and previous solutions attempts are a good way of getting familiarized with the problem without running the risk wasting the community's time through interviews/surveys by asking questions that they have already answered. In addition, critiquing the existing literature and solutions is a good way to make sure you do not needlessly repeat the same mistakes as someone else has. Ask yourself if they have followed the tenets listed in this week's reading, and who might be excluded in their research/designs. I say this because I feel that a lot of the same mistakes are often made in tech for social good spaces, and organizations are so focused on completing the final product and having tangible designs/code to show to investors that they gloss over research and community outreach. |
Beta Was this translation helpful? Give feedback.
-
Reminder: Responses submitted after Monday 2pm will not be eligible for awards.
What do you think about design justice? How might you apply it in your designs going forward?
The reading on Design Justice will be important to completing this thinking cap.
Submission
Make a new comment below and respond to any students comment before class begins.
Beta Was this translation helpful? Give feedback.
All reactions