Human Factors: design as encoding privilege

The role of (product) design as an arbiter of values and ethics, and how we can be more aware of our role

In the light of human atrocities in the last month, especially the suicide bombings in Lebanon and France, we ask, mainly, why?

Our main responsibility as global citizens in the aftermath is honoring the victims, helping the families, picking up the pieces, bringing perpetrators to justice. Analyzing the response from the public is an auxiliary question, and one that usually gets answered in terms of numbers and quotes, if at all. But we can try to unpack the system which perpetuates certain reactions, and see it as a symptom, a clue, to the deeper tragedies beyond the surface.

For it is not simply that hundreds died, but that a hundred lives are more valued, more mourned, more covered, than a hundred, thousand, million other lives elsewhere.

We do not treat people equally. We prioritize tragedy that happens to people “similar to us” and we support it insofar as it’s convenient.

Media outlets such as the New York Times as well as individuals on social media have rightly pointed out the discrepant reactions to Paris and Beirut. We’ve seen an international outpouring of support and grief for the former, barely a ripple for latter, to say nothing of the atrocities which occur beyond. We can change our profile pictures to the French tricolore in a click, even set a timer to remove the filter in a week, yet most of us can’t even picture the flag of Lebanon. Why?

This is a good opportunity to point out the invisible forces here — of the market and mass media, but more insidiously, of design and technology. The privilege encoded in the tech industry is a powerful, constant influence on our everyday experience, and it is usually taken for granted or left unconsidered.

Design and technology are considered utopian enterprises. We’re lean, we’re iterative, we listen to the customer. We disrupt old dinosaurs and birth new unicorns. We improve lives through the products and services we invent from whole cloth.

Design and technology, undoubtedly, make lives better for many. They can still cause — and worsen — our old human biases. The solutions are still narrowly focused on market segments that maximize profit and not impact. Our industry is not absolved of blame. Yet we do not as a society have a wary eye cast towards them as we do with finance or media. As with any pathology, the unrecognized and untreated can often cause lethal damage.

We, the builders of the online systems you use every day, circumscribe the politic of the system. “Security through obscurity” is a cliché about software, where, since bugs are never noticed, bugs are never exploited. It is a false sense of security: someone, somewhere, is always trying to exploit you. It also applies to our broader industry and its agenda. The greater public generally does not understand what technologists do day-to-day. They may see the looming specter of “technology eating the world.” They may observe the former nerds going to crazy parties and making mad cash.

Why are the nerds making mad cash?

When we say “tech industry,” we mean the work performed mostly in Silicon Valley (San Francisco Bay Area) and Silicon Alley (New York), but also around the world. We mean the culture lampooned by the show entitled Silicon Valley. What most of us do is design and build the websites and other software you use every day, as a Citizen of the Internet, as a Digital Native. These broadly include consumer and commercial websites (like Amazon or Squarespace); web applications (like Facebook or Spotify); operating systems and platforms (like Apple iOS or Oculus); apps for those operating systems and platforms (like Zynga or Electronic Arts); enterprise software operating in the cloud (like Dropbox or Adobe Creative Suite); infrastructure and programs to make the whole bundle of Innertnetz function (like Firefox or MongoDB).

It’s simplistic to say we build websites and software.

The role of the designer in 2015 is to abstract away thought. The role of the developer in 2015 is to carve policy into stone.

The role of technology is mind control. Technology is about imposing constraints, design is about deciding which constraints are best. Technology is about amplifying some voices and muting others. We have entrusted a very small group of people — the grunts, not to mention the executives or sources of funding — to make decisions for the broader group, yet we don’t think about them as “powerful” as we would a CEO or political president. This small group can be insular, oblivious, and often itself problematic.

Steve Jobs famously said that design is how it works. Steve Krug said don’t make me think. UX and design gurus trot out the same lines about empathy, about being in your customer’s shoes, about telling human stories, about making it so foolproof to use that no conscious participation is needed.

What stories do we tell but the ones we already know by heart, that we can imagine immediately? If you picture another’s shoe, even as an empath, you’re picturing something familiar, something deeply personal, culturally resonant, individualistic. Maybe your favorite pair of Nikes. Maybe your dream Louboutin stilettos. Maybe some Toms. Maybe those freaky toe shoes. Probably not “no shoes at all, we cannot afford both shoes and food.”

You will naturally project the perceived suffering onto yourself and your own life. The self-involved ego is foundational in social media platforms: responsible for posts similar to the following:

“I can’t believe I was 3 blocks away from the venue during my semester abroad, Paris je t’aime”

“I had a beer with the band members in LA, I hope they’re safe.”

We’ve seen a backlash against orphans and widow refugees, because what if they infiltrate us and take our freedoms? We’ve seen people lump all Muslims as terrorists, why don’t they just believe in what we believe? We’ve seen propaganda composited in Photoshop, a suicide vest and Koran on top of a Canadian Sikh, to make a point about “terrorists” amongst us.

You have a much higher chance of dying in a car accident because someone was drunk or texting (and gasoline cars are deathtraps on wheels), getting shot by a disgruntled white dude (strangers, but more likely a member of your family), or suffering an accident whilst taking a selfie than dying in a terrorist attack.

Opinions are cheap. Opinions are plentiful, and viral. Opinions are often poorly or wholly uninformed. Media content is easily produced and disseminated. When you make something too easy to do, you increase the likelihood of it occurring. You also decrease the likelihood of the customer seeking other options. The market is efficient, blah blah blah, the market selects a winner. It’s an excellent setup for corporations and institutions who have discovered the power of design.

We the people then become a critical monoculture. It’s easy to like and follow and retweet and share. It’s easy to click a button to apply an overlay on your selfie, to receive broadcasts from certain friends. It’s moderately easy to protest something by marking yourself as interested in an event or writing a thoughtful comment. It’s hard to go outside of your social group. It’s hard to act on change. It’s hard to see yourself and your society clearly.

Who makes these decisions? Who literally codes them into being?

#YungTechElite

The tech industry promises the world to people like me: young, creative, intelligent, hard-working, ambitious. The media and education industries push STEM degrees on us Millennials: much better ROI than liberal arts degrees, which are themselves better than no bachelor’s degree at all. Technology is king. Transitive property.

They all say I deserve it, I have worked my way up. Sure, I have worked hard, true. What this rhetoric fails to mention is a lot of my traits are circumstantial, the result of sheer luck. By no means was it a meritocracy to enter. Now that I’m here, my skills play a huge role in keeping me around, but are they as critical as other factors of privilege that got me here?

I am Taiwanese-American, 22, female, New Yorker. Born in Texas. Dual citizen. Raised in Suburban New Jersey, in a town that’s 90% white, $150k median family income. The recent hubbub about The Watcher is based there. Product Designer at a company you’ve likely heard of. I have half of my undergrad from NYU, an individualized concentration called Visualizing Human Narratives. I am going back part time to finish up.

My parents were both highly educated; they have a cumulative 20 years of higher education, another 25 of primary. That’s almost as long as my mother was alive, in total. My father is a statistician with a PhD who works in pharmaceuticals, doing tables and overseeing programmers on clinical trials. In 2000 they moved us to the best public school district they could find, where I learned a lot about upper middle class White People Norms. This town also had a Chinese community; I learned Mandarin and discipline through music and books, but I was never locked in a basement to study. My parents encouraged me to work hard in school whilst having fun and taking care of myself and others. I spent high school exploring my natural interests and talents: painting, stagecraft, graphic design, literary magazines, music, typography, gaming, web design, entrepreneurship. Mommy and daddy supported me in any way they could, a Goldilocks situation of support yet independence.

More mundane factors, too. I always had enough to eat. I always had my own bedroom, the master suite since I asked and asserted myself as a 6 year old, painted bubblegum pink. When I was hurt or scared, they comforted me. They empowered me to find different ways to solve through problems.

Now I attend NYU, was privileged enough to afford to go, was privileged enough to apply and be accepted. A significant portion of my network comes from this school and city. I have been lucky enough to be able to participate in technology organizations and mentorship, becoming a leader in the NYC tech community. I have never worked a job which was not self-directed or did not employ my unique skills. My best friends, concentrated in New York but scattered across the globe, attended schools such as Amherst, Bard, Barnard, Berkeley, Brown, Carnegie Mellon, Columbia, Cooper Union, Emerson, Hampshire, Hunter, MIT, New School, Pomona, Princeton, RISD, RIT, Rutgers, Smith, Swarthmore, UChicago, UofR, Vassar, Williams, Yale...

The median age of my friendgroup is around 23. We have, amongst us, student tech leaders at campuses around the world. We have certified geniuses. We have math and computer science double majors, with minors in the humanities. We have venture capitalists, fund managers, incubator directors. We have consultants. We have academic researchers. We have plenty of Googlers, past and present. We have computer science PhD candidates. We have successful entrepreneurs. We have successful exits. We have Heads of Product, of Design, of Engineering; we have Executive track at multinational corporations. And we have many, many, Software Developers and Product Designers.

I am, at 22 years old, in the top 10% of American earners. I am in the top 0.1% of earners worldwide. I worked up from Intern to Junior to unprefixed in 2.5 years. I work strictly 40 hour weeks and spend my free time exploring the city and my own interests. I live self-sufficiently in my own Manhattan apartment. My morning commute features a stroll through Central Park. I do not worry for my safety or stability. I have enough to eat. I take care of my body, mind. I work hard and I play hard. I have a supportive family (both of origin and constructed), a strong network, many friends. I even have a high-powered therapist for when none of that is sufficient.

We don’t like to discuss money or class in the United States; it comes off as bragging. But this is another example of obfuscation. By not being aware and transparent about our privilege, we promote unrealistic narratives about what it takes to succeed. We need to provide the facts upfront before we can critique both the good and the bad. Technology is not and has not been a 100% meritocracy, although it is better than many industries.

The person or team who made the Facebook tricolore overlay likely makes more money than me. Facebook is known for their generous compensation and competitive hiring. Rumors say starting offers can go as high as $200k. He or she probably has a similar background to my little fairy tale. Actually, even more prestigious; maybe a boarding school, probably attendance at an Ivy or engineering school, a legitimate degree in Computer Science. If not Asian like I am, they are likely White. They may be the trifecta of Cisgender White Man. Their life probably sounds even better than mine does on paper, probably less exposure to personal tragedy. Intact family. Intact friends. And we’re told we deserve everything we have, that we’re the best of the best!

How does someone like that self-identify with what’s happening in Nigeria? In Iraq? Even in, say, Greece?

How do people like us become empathetic when we’ll never have those experiences?

Suffering opens your eyes to a wide range of possible lives. But if I’ve learned anything from my experience with personal grief, it’s that people want to stay as far away from the unknown and horrifying as possible.

Tragedy is Cooties 2.0.

We shield ourselves from the horrors of the world, from dissenting opinions. We try to organize information, as if we could organize reality that way — and the scary part is we can and do. We can block and hide content that we don’t like. We follow accounts from a list of prescribed interests. We hang out with people that are just like us, doing the same work, coming from the same kind of backgrounds. We can sit on our billion little computers and open our billion little soapboxes and complain, find solidarity in others’ agreement, doxx to hell those who don’t align. Technology enables a filter bubble — technology is built by a filter bubble. The filter bubble takes away logical thought and civil discourse, to say nothing of empathy.

When you see the privileging of certain atrocities like Paris over others, it’s an extension of general privilege, and technical privilege as a concentration therein. The #YTE write the algorithms that surface relevant content. The #YTE design the interfaces where you can choose to honor some people over others. The #YTE control the amount of time a topic or news story is featured before the next disaster. And on and on.

Algorithms prioritize relevancy, but relevancy can be bought and sold. Relevancy is based on playing the system’s games better than others play. Relevancy is based on already knowing how things work and thus how to profit.

Most importantly, algorithms are coded by people who have a certain set of biases and origins, and who may not always be aware of them. Interfaces are designed by people who are paid to think all day to make things thoughtless. It is willfully lying to say that STEM is objective, rational truth, always fair, whether in its inputs or outputs. There is no fair.

The tech industry is a system that inherently values some people over others. If we as an industry are already valuing the 0.1% privileged over the 1% privileged — and feeling elite over the 1% — then it’s easy to see why some of us may conceptualize the bottom 0.1% (or even the bottom 99%) as purely statistical, as inhuman. Some of this is unconscious, but it’s partially resentment. Technology is eating the world. The nerds are eating the bullies’ lunch now. That does not mean we need to become bullies, ourselves.

We should not be surprised that this faux-meritocratic attitude carries over to how we represent international politics. We, however, should be ashamed, should yearn to bring in more viewpoints, should value all of us as human beings and not just data points from which to mine profit. Our world may be small now, but our perspective doesn’t need to be. We as the builders have been extremely lucky in our lives. We should use this gift in positive, equalizing ways.

None of us are absolved of blame. All of us can bring light.