Learning to Design for Diversity
3 Ways I’m Changing My Design Practice to Power an Inclusive Future
When protests erupted across the country around the killings of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, and Breonna Taylor, Cisco paused. Our CEO Chuck Robbins postponed Cisco Live! — our biggest conference of the year where over 120,000 people had registered — just one day before it was scheduled to start. Rather than tout our latest technology, Chuck and the rest of the leadership team made space for us to take care of ourselves and our communities, and encouraged us to reflect on the moment.
It was a painful and disorienting time. In my small design transformation team, we met to process our feelings about the current situation. As design thinkers, we like to believe that we have a framework for tackling complex problems of any size. And while we all wanted to do something to help, we recognized it wasn’t the right time to apply our set of tools to such a layered issue. First, we needed to listen, learn and examine our own complicity in the systems that maintain inequality.
Throughout my career, I’d seen critiques of design thinking in terms of social impact. But as the protests spread, I was surprised to find such pointed critiques of the practice. Some called design thinking tone deaf. Some claimed it supports systems of oppression. Some said it protects white supremacy. I personally didn’t have a deep enough understanding of systems of oppression, nor how I contribute to them as a design thinker. And looking at the larger context alongside these compounding critiques, I have to admit that I felt paralyzed.
But soon after, Cisco announced our new purpose: To power an inclusive future. It felt like a call to arms and a call to action. I decided I wanted my work to play a part in this mission, so I took the moment to learn as much as possible about designing for diversity and inclusion.
I certainly do not have all the answers, but this research has surfaced some pretty powerful questions. Below, I’ve outlined the hard questions I’m asking myself regularly, the insights I’ve gleaned through thought leaders in the space, and the techniques that I’m applying to my daily design thinking practices to help build a more inclusive future.
How am I perpetuating bias and stereotypes in my current design practice?
As a design thinking workshop facilitator, part of my job is to ensure that all voices are heard. But I do have some influence over who gets heard most. I may have my own biases that cause me to marginalize people or points of view, which means I have to be hyper-aware and ready to center on those who are at risk of marginalization.
Beyond how I consider participants in the workshops, it’s critical to think about how I approach defining our users with personas.
Most of the personas that I’ve seen and created have been characterized with demographics like sex, age, location, job title, salary, and marriage status. It’s not uncommon to see descriptions like “Midwest soccer mom” or “65-year-old white male in the rural south.”
While it’s never quite sat right with me, it was illuminating to see Indi Young’s take on it in her article “Woke in the Technology Workplace”. She notes that human beings are wired to find patterns in stuff even if the patterns are meaningless. We connect a few data points and then create solutions based on our own biases and experiences.
Traditional personas and vague demographic descriptions are loaded with assumptions, which only perpetuate our stereotypes. On top of that, they speak nothing of user motivations, which is ultimately what matters when designing products.
In my role as a design thinking facilitator and designer, I know I’ve executed this type of surface persona work. And subconsciously, I’m sure I’ve projected my own biases to create what I think is right when it probably isn’t addressing the root of the issue.
What am I going to change moving forward?
As I work with teams and crafting personas, I’m committed to pointing out how using demographics and made-up personality traits can lead to biased thinking. Instead of relying solely on these flat descriptors, I’ll prompt them to start finding ways to describe personas that don’t rely on demographics — and instead dig into deeper user motivations.
How should I approach inclusion and exclusion in design research?
To build a useful product that people love, it’s important to center on specific users with clearly defined problems for us to solve. It’s not that exclusion is bad in itself if we’re building for a specific audience. We choose who we want to serve and the markets we want to address.
Given that many of our staff today are former Cisco customers, I do wonder if we’re too focused on talking to users who look similar to us: mainly white and Asian males. I also wonder how this impacts who will build and use these products tomorrow.
What am I going to change moving forward?
I have to explicitly address the concept of inclusion and exclusion with project teams, and we have to be really conscious about how we decide who to include. We also need to be aware of the diversity that exists within that specific audience. One small step I can take is to include other layers of diversity and differences in our participant pool, including people with disabilities.
Am I considering how the solutions I help shape could impact a larger system?
Design thinking is hyper-focused on solving just a few key problems for our users. But in directing teams to think so specifically about those needs, am I neglecting to surface or acknowledge the potential downstream effects these solutions might have on a larger system?
Stated otherwise in Project Inkblot’s Design for Diversity Framework, we need to ask ourselves: “What harm can come from our solutions and to whom?”
This framework has challenged me to consider not just the intent of the design, but its impact.
Solving one problem may actually create more problems down the road.
What am I going to change moving forward?
Considering the harmful effects of a design project should be baked into the process from day one. As we evaluate conceptual designs, I have started to ask myself and the project teams what harm can come from our solutions and to whom? It’s my job to help the teams think about the system more holistically, and how our well-intentioned solution could have a domino effect down the line.
All of these questions only beget more questions for me because designing for diversity is complex. It’s forced me to examine not just my own cognitive biases but systemic biases too. And while I recognize that these big issues won’t be solved overnight, I’m committed to learning more. I’m reading books about technology and design ethics like Design Justice and Future Ethics. I’m signing up for classes to learn how to practice humanity-centered design. And I’m connecting with other designers wrestling with these same questions. I’m taking baby steps — but important steps — and I would also love to hear what you’ve seen, read, or learned about designing for diversity and inclusion.
