In his talk, Eric Meyer was erudite, funny, and brave. His central thesis was that design is a manifestation of values, and that every decision taken demonstrates what we care about. When we design software products, the things that we make easy to use represent those things we consider important. Those things we consider unimportant may be hard to do, or even impossible.

Thus, if we believe that people should just “be more thick-skinned”, we may create products that preclude the silencing of abuse, and instead make it easy to respond in kind. Meyer further drew attention to the fact that what children grow up with becomes the norm, and that the design decisions we make today will shape the future in a very literal way.

Anita Sarkeesian built upon this by pointing out that the makeup of an organisation determines its values. White men with light loads have different interpretations of what is important or fair or just than, say, black trans women. Thus, diversity in a workforce leads to a different set of values, materially impacts product decisions, and thus materially impacts the future.

I can attempt to empathise with those who have a different experience of the world, but ultimately I lack the frame of reference to truly understand some of problems they face. You can’t solve what you don’t see. Medium, for example, uses light grey on white in its UX. It’s clear that not many, if any, Medium employees need to use the high contrast setting on their computers.

On the other hand, it is no coincidence that the Blocking feature on Medium was proposed, designed and implemented by Kelly Ellis, someone who had been the recipient of harassment and threats on other platforms, even as some wondered whether we needed to implement it until abuse actually became a problem. Those wonderers are not guilty of bigotry, nor do they lack empathy. They simply had a blind spot to this issue.

Diversifying your organisation will remove your blind spots and mould the future.

Traveling to Portland on Friday, I was reminded of The Escalator, a great analogy by Missy Titus, sent to me by a colleague a while back. You should read that post before you continue, lest you think that what follows here is original thinking on my part.

I flew here from Oakland Airport, gate 26. Gate 26 is an annoying gate. You come through security and the sign says:

← Gates 26–72 | Gates 1–25 →

There, right in front of you, is gate 25. Gate 26 is not next to it. Instead, you have to walk down three long concourses lined with restaurants and kiosks of overpriced electronics.

To make the journey a little easier, travelators are installed to carry you some of the way. I walk fast anyway, but I especially like to walk on travelators, and get that sensation of being a Z-list superhero whose power is that they can walk slightly faster than others. Because I’m only in Portland for a few days, I have a single light piece of carry-on luggage. So, I’m striding down the travelator like Speed-Walking Man, untroubled by my load and grumbling about the distance to gate 26, but not really too much.

I pass a young guy. He is marshaling a trolley with a couple of bags on it, a stroller, and a child who looks like he should be in the stroller. The kid didn’t want to use the travelator, so he’s pushing this trolley down the center of the aisle, looking harassed. I get the feeling he’s tired, and his child is tired, and he is not looking forward to being the parent on the plane with a tired child.

You could imagine plenty of other people on that concourse. Maybe there’s a woman on the travelator, but her bags are heavier than mine. Perhaps there’s a guy in a wheelchair which doesn’t fit on the travelator, and is moving under his own steam. Or an executive whose assistant is carrying hir bag.

We’re all going to Portland. We all have access to the same flight. We’re all going to get to the same gate eventually (though you might imagine in a different metaphoranalogy that some people just give up). But even if we all arrived at the airport at the same time, I’m going to be at the gate before most people, and a lot less tired than most people. If the seating was determined by the order in which we arrived, I’d be chilling in Premium Economy with an eye-pillow and neck rest while everyone else is trying to fit their carry-on into jam-packed overhead lockers.

In life, I’m always the guy on the travelator with a light load. No-one carries my bags for me, but they’re not what you’d call heavy.