- Nothing About Us Without Us, Design Justice Chapter 2, by Sasha Costanza-Chock
Summary
This chapter introduces the different practices of Design Justice during the design and development process of a product.
Include:
- Avoid white supremacy. Embrace a work team with diverse backgrounds.
- Co-creation. The development team should collaborate more with the community.
- Avoid building user profiles out of “air” and so-called “putting yourself in the other person’s shoes” and actually consult users and meet their needs.
Takeaway
It makes sense that designers should not “assume” that they are disabled (such as what it is like to spend a day in a wheelchair). Designers without physical disabilities usually stand in the perspective of normal people, thinking about “how to make disabled people look like normal people”, and “how to get close to the life functions of normal people”, rather than really understanding how to provide convenience for disabled people.
Real-World Example
This actually reminds me of HCI Research. In the field of human-computer interaction, many scientific research problems are projects oriented towards applicability and Ability. However, many teachers or students only understand the difficulties of disabled people through materials, news, and other channels in the design stage, and devise solutions independently. In most of the experiments, the researchers invited students or teachers to school or played the role of an elderly person themselves. It’s actually not a very good study. From the moment of the initial research idea, researchers should look more for people who match their user profile to validate and refine their initial idea.
Burning Question
I want to illustrate a point of view from my point of view. I don’t think there’s an overemphasis on white supremacy in society right now. This article puts too much emphasis on gender and race. In the data given in the article, we can indeed see that white men account for a large proportion of the top management of tech companies. But have we ever thought about the question, no one is asking women not to study computer science, math, or physics, and no one is saying that women can’t pass these interviews. In fact, as a bisexual Asian woman with an undergraduate background in computer science (does that satisfy American political correctness, probably), I think our nation’s businesses are also welcoming women with high technical abilities into the business. And a lot of women around me sometimes say, “I can’t code; I can’t understand these things; They are too difficult “to reject to receive further technical education.
My belief is that women and minorities should not be stereotyped, specifically THEMSELVES. On the one hand, they ask for diversity, on the other hand, they feel that they can’t do it here or there. My definition of gender equality is to strive to improve one’s ability to be on the same level as people of different genders and races.
My views may differ from the prevailing view in the United States, but it’s a sign of diversity, isn’t it?