Your UX team isn’t diverse enough, despite your DEI efforts
You have a serious problem if all your designers are millennials on skateboards
Most of us have worked in groups composed of outstanding designers. But let's face it, they are usually millennials with design degrees from the University of Amsterdam, Berlin, or Stanford. Masters in creating impressive Figma prototypes, with delightful aesthetics, tasteful animations, and creative colour palettes.
Those designers might even conduct journey mapping-, ideation-, and strategy workshops flawlessly.
But do those teams full of UX poster boys (yes, usually boys) give the company the best outcomes? Do they really understand the users they are designing for?
Well, obviously, you might say.
The teams are armed with empathy maps, user journeys, and an awful lot of UX research. They have a profound understanding of the target audience!
Or do they?
These teams have the best intentions in the world, but the quality of their outcomes might be heavily compromised.
Let’s explore why.
Sleep Tracking
Finding the sweet spot between an optimal user experience and business objectives is the goal for all UX teams. Or at least, it should be. This must have certainly been the case at the Fitbit offices.
In a pursuit to offer an affordable product, the R&D+UX teams decided to equip their smartwatches with photoplethysmographic (PPG) green light signalling. This sensor is used to check your heart rate.
Unfortunately, this choice caused issues for people of colour. Darker skin contains more melanin, a natural pigment that absorbs green light. Therefore, Fitbit’s green light sensors didn’t give accurate heart rate readings for everyone.
Yes, that’s right. Fitbit — and other sleep trackers — are optimised for white people.
So how did this happen? Was this a deliberate — and thus racist — choice?
I find that hard to believe.
This failure was likely the result of teams who were intrinsically non-diverse. During Fitbit’s design and development phases, no one found compelling arguments to question the company's choice for these green light sensors.
What if a big part of the team was of colour? I would imagine that the prototype would have been rejected.
Another issue is pointed out in a study done by the University of California in San Diego:
A second problem with the current state of wearables research seems to be the lack of diversity in validation studies. The consumer wearable industry modus operandi is to bring to market a minimally viable product to the largest population as quickly as possible. Test marketing (there are too few true validation studies published) is often done with a local population that may lack a diversity of skin tones, and objective measurement of skin pigmentation is rarely reported.
So not only was Fitbit lacking diversity in its own organisation, it was also non-diverse in its test panels.
One Fitbit user points this out in an article by Statnews:
It goes to a bit of a deeper issue, when you start talking about who’s in the room when these devices are being tested, who’s in the room when these devices are being designed, and … are the companies taking the time to make sure that the entire population is represented when they’re developing this technology?
Other failures
Fitbit is just one of the many examples of how companies have the illusion they can design a good product with a non-diverse set of well-educated professionals.
- Male-centred Apple introduced its Health app in 2014. The app allows you to track everything related to your body and health. However, the UX team forgot that menstrual cycles are a big part of half its user’s health. It was not part of the app.
- Amazon’s Alexa and Google Home were created on the U.S. West Coast. Their speech detection AI was thus trained on the local accent. Consequently, these “smart” devices didn’t understand other English accents.
It had problems responding to non-native speakers (Spanish, Chinese, etc.). But even natives (Scottish, US-Southern, etc.) had big problems using the speech control. - Meta has a long history of racism, sexism, and other discrimination, particularly — but not limited to — their ad systems.
Facebook showed ads to buy houses for white people, whereas minorities were shown rental properties.
Job postings were intrinsically sexist. Certain jobs were shown to specific genders. I don’t even mean jobs like carpenter vs. nurse. I’m talking about two similar jobs but for different companies where ads for masculine and macho brands/employers were disproportionally shown to male users. Facebook even designed filters for advertisers, which allowed them to exclude black people, Muslims, or disabled people from receiving their ads. - Most of us are familiar with the Google Translate issue, made public via the study “Assessing Gender Bias in Machine Translation — A Case Study with Google Translate.”
The artificial intelligence model used in the tool made sexist choices. This was because many of the world’s books, articles, and data are intrinsically sexist.
Crap in, crap out.
* OpenAI joins the chat *
When translating certain phrases from a gender-free language (like Hungarian) into English, the issue becomes apparent:
I could continue forever, but I just chose a few examples from the big tech to illustrate our problems. Apple, Google, Amazon, and Facebook pat themselves on the back regarding diversity. Their DEI programmes still fail them.
Here’s why.
A California-born female Stanford graduate of Asian descent might check many diversity boxes. Hiring her gives the FAANG recruiter a bonus and the company diversity bragging rights.
This Asian tech girl is, however, still a product of the US West Coast society.
She’s been following domestic news channels, has been part of the local education system, and lives in the same urban environment as her Caucasian peers.
Her personality is formed in the 90s, in a rich, technologically advanced, car-centred, sunny, consumeristic, competitive, and individualistic society.
Of course, many characteristics in each country make people different from each other: socio-economics, family values, education, etc. etc.
But still, a big part of the world grows up in a different environment from the tech-centred Western bubble. Cupertino, London, or Amsterdam is not a representation of the world. As a result, the products that are designed there, often don’t serve the world. Also not when the talent is relocated from Detroit, Marseille, or Leeds.
A small DEI sidestep
I know this can be a sensitive topic, so let’s briefly discuss this.
I’ve been a Diversity & Inclusion Officer for a renowned organization. I got into this role because I really care about inclusion. I am in favour of quotas and have been in way too many white-male-only management meetings with disturbing ‘jokes’. I would genuinely not be mad if I were rejected for a job because another candidate would be available who’d add more inclusion.
The diversity programme still drove me mad. Many of my DEI peers had no idea about what diversity or inclusion means.
Some had good intentions but had never heard of concepts like neurodiversity. They were basically gender balance officers. Others couldn’t care less about inclusion and moved into this role to advance their own careers. It gave them boardroom time, visibility, and political leverage.
To me, it felt the organization mainly wanted a DEI programme because it was a prerequisite to be eligible for EU grants. A fair few executives didn’t believe in the programme. All they wanted was a spreadsheet confirming they’d done their job so they could move on.
The E in DEI stands for Equity. You know how sincere the intentions behind these programmes can be if even companies like Amazon have them. (I really hope I don’t have to explain why I use Amazon as an example.)
Companies really need their DEI programmes, but they should believe in them and not do it because of political reasons and window dressing.
The Emoji Monopoly
Another illustrative case of the impact of a lack of diversity is the Emoji committee. These people decide what’s added to the world’s most popular language: Emojis.
Yes, Emojis are a universal language. Almost all people with a smartphone use them regularly. Even my mum.
Emojis can be considered the body language of the digital age. And we all know… body language is a big part of communication.
We use Emojis to add subtleties to our messages. Emojis are essential to effective communication. Am I ironic or serious? 😏 🤔 😈
But who decides which Emojis are part of this visual vocabulary? You guessed it right. The Emoji Committee… located on the U.S. West Coast.
A number of “voluntary” representatives from the usual tech giants (FAANG, IBM, Adobe, etc, etc) decide for us with which visual icons we are allowed to communicate.
The committee sprinkled three Asian representatives into the committee for the illusion of diversity. But Silicon Valley obviously still holds the monopoly. The tech giants have the majority of the votes. The African Continent — 16% of the world’s population — is completely left out. As always.
Which vegetables, vehicles, countries, tools, facial expressions, family compositions, specific LGBTQ+ flags, etc., are socially accepted across the globe?
This committee will decide for you:
Watch this excellent documentary to get a sense of these people's impact on society.
PS: This topic deserves a dedicated article. I’ll put it on my “to write” list.
Accelerating innovation?
Sure, it’s easy to point out mistakes. But what about success? Can we show that diversity would actually help companies, or am I just virtue signalling in this article?
A fair bit of research is done to assess the impact of diversity on business performance.
Diversity in management teams
British Economists Max Nathan and Neil Lee studied the relationship between cultural diversity, innovation, and sales strategies in London.
They used the data from a survey conducted at 7,600 firms. This survey investigated how these companies were formed, what the workforce and management looked like, and how the firms performed.
The scientists found a “diversity bonus across innovation, market orientation, and entrepreneurship”.
The diversity of the management team has a small but robust link to the development and implementation of major new products. Migrant-run firms are more likely to introduce major process innovations.
If you wonder what’s meant by innovation... This was assessed by identifying if the firm had, in the past 12 months:
- Introduced a major new product or service,
- Significantly modified its product range or services,
- Introduced major new equipment or new ways of working.
Having multicultural bosses means multiple strategic product perspectives. It leads to more innovative companies.
Diversity in non-management levels of the organization
The University of Aalborg did a similar study. They, however, investigated the effect of employee diversity on innovation. The scientists surveyed 1,648 Danish firms.
Their findings were clear:
- Employee diversity in terms of gender, age and education has an effect on the likelihood that firms innovate.
- Firms with a more balanced gender composition are more likely to innovate.
- Firms with diversity in the types of education have a higher likelihood of innovating.
- A degree of diversity where the minority group has a critical mass to contribute to the innovation process appears to have a higher likelihood of introducing an innovation.
The conclusion of the study speaks for itself:
Not only diversity in top management but also on the level of employees matters for firms’ innovative performance.
“But we just hire the best candidates!”
This article discovered that a lack of diversity can lead to product failures. It might cause unintentional but discriminatory results. A company’s reputation can even be highly damaged.
We also see that having a more diverse management and workforce can bring innovation.
For a big part of my career, I worked in multicultural environments and was involved in a ton of recruitment.
You always (yes, I mean always), hear someone say:
We shouldn’t look at someone’s characteristics. We are colourblind.
We hire for excellence. The best!
We simply choose the most competent candidate.
The entire issue with this statement is… what is “the best?”
How do we assess the competence of a designer?
Does remembering all the Figma keyboard shortcuts make someone competent? What about the number of sticky notes on a Miro Board? Maybe the “oh wow” factor during a whiteboard exercise reveals someone’s talent?
Just for the sake of the thought experiment: let’s assume we know how to assess and select the best designer.
Does this person really elevate the company and its design team? Are the contributions of this designer measurable? How would we be able to compare it to what “the less good” designers would have brought?
We can put 11 Lionel Messis in a football team, but that wouldn’t make them win the Champions League.
We can put Miles Davis, Frederic Chopin, Freddy Mercury, and Paul McCartney in one band, but it would be a complete catastrophe.
What if Kafka, Sartre, and Orwell would have written a book together?
A football team needs its Schweinsteiger, and a band needs its John Deacon.
So how could we recruit?
Let me say something no one in the design industry wants to hear.
The design craft is overrated.
I particularly mean the importance of mastering methods and tools.
Anyone who can count to 10 can learn how to draw a rectangle in Figma. Anyone with basic logic can set up a user journey map. Anyone with a slight sense of imagination can do a crazy 8.
I’ve had discussions where my colleagues rejected insanely talented candidates with PhDs in psychology, just because they’ve never created a flow chart in their career.
You can literally learn how to create a flow chart in 30 minutes. But learning how people motivate themselves, how they cope with traumas, and how they adapt their lives based on environmental technological changes, is something that can take a lifetime to learn.
Many UX designers overvalue themselves. These are the same people who tend to underestimate the craftspersonship in UX research and UX writing.
Having a keyboard doesn’t make you a writer, and having ears doesn’t make you a researcher.
However, a pen and paper can make you a designer. Anyone is a designer. The best designers let others in the organization do the design work for them. They foster creativity, let everyone contribute — regardless of rank or background, and combine ideas into a cohesive concept.
Good designers don’t create. They arbitrate and combine. That’s all.
Your design team is only as good as how diverse its members think. Good design is about how well different insights are openly discussed — without judgment.
The design you created in isolation is never going to be great. You need alternative views. The more ideas you can find, the better your design becomes.
- Would Apple’s health app be better if its team had a healthy gender balance?
- Would Alexa be better if their team consisted of more non-native English speakers?
- Would Google Translate be less sexist if the team were not so Anglo-Saxon?
- Would Facebook’s ad system be less evil if its team included more people from minorities?
Of course, it would.
A plaid shirt, Vans sneakers, and a Macbook don’t make you a good designer. Especially not if your team members think exactly like each other and if they all listen to Tame Impala, MGMT, the 1975, or god knows which other contemporary neo-psychedelic post-modern indie synth-pop artist.
If you want to design for the world, you need to get the world into your design room. Sure, research is useful, but the more your audience is part of the design process, the better the outcome.
If we work for a toy company, we can’t recruit children to become designers. But it would be fun, wouldn’t it?
You might not need a global workforce if you create a domestic health insurance app. But you can recruit older people, they might be the main audience of your product.
For global products, we need multicultural teams. We need people from all continents.
And for any product, regardless of geographic focus, we should recruit neurodiverse designers. Any userbase is neurodiverse.
Hiring managers have a tendency to select copies of themselves. Culture fit is often used as a bogus excuse to exclude good candidates. The problem is, culture fit makes your company less diverse. It creates a blueprint of the “perfect” personality, based on the personalities that are already in your company.
Let’s assume fun, expressive, or — god forbid — karaoke is part of your company’s culture.
How is someone’s Whitney Houston imitation relevant to the contributions to a design team? It’s not.
Some don’t drink alcohol. Some don’t like crowded places. Some need to go home to care for their kids or pray. Some rather read a book than have banter.
Being different, odd, or unconventional doesn’t make someone a less competent designer.
In fact, they might bring things to the design table that the rest of the team has never thought of.
The most competent team members aren’t the ones who impress you with Figma bells and whistles. Valuable members are those who challenge your design. They make you realise you need to change the core of your functionality because you missed some essential aspects, which would exclude a part of your user base.
And now I hear you think… but we must deliver 100 mockups every sprint to keep the engineers busy. We need them mockup machines. We can’t afford deep thinkers who still need to learn figma. We need to produce.
As Soon As Possible. As Much As Possible. As Cool As Possible.
Well, if that’s the case, then there’s a bigger issue in your company. But that’s something we can explore some other time.
You are not a designer if you just convert Jira tickets into mockups like an assembly line worker. This makes you a Figma slave.
The quality of the designer is not related to the amount of mockups shipped. Quality is related to how valuable a design is once it’s deployed. The higher the design quality, the less it needs to be changed once in production.
You may need to make a case to expand your design team to make it more diverse. An extra designer or two in your team is not expensive if you compare this to the cost of all your product failures, wasted design and dev time, reputation damage, and user churn.
Conclusion
The more diverse the newsroom of a newspaper or TV show, the more balanced the journalism.
The more diverse the governmental parliament, the better all groups within a society are represented. The more nuanced and functional new laws will be.
The more diverse your design team, the better your users are included in the design process, the less you accidentally exclude minorities, the higher the quality of your designs, and the fewer redesigns are needed.
Neuro-diverse teams are more likely to design a product right the first time.
Don’t hire for Figma skills; hire for new perspectives, comprehension of your users, and the ability to ask “why?” and say “no!”
Hi, just a post-scriptum from the author.
I was born in 1982 (this makes me an early adopter of millennialism), studied in Amsterdam, and grew up in an upper-middle-class family. I wear plaid shirts, listen to Tame Impala, but don’t have an iPhone.
I should probably be the last person to write an article like this. You might be right, but someone has to. As a design leader, I don’t want to work with teams that consist of only copies of myself—one Bas brings more than enough obnoxiousness.
Also, I’m conducting research to understand how tech habits and constraints vary per continent. Have a look at my article about the UX in Cameroon to get an idea. Reach out to me if you have anything meaningful to discuss about your culture!
