.
Timeline : 10 weeks
Role : Research Head + Design Strategy Lead
Theme : Equity Centered Design + Systems Design + Racial Equity
Project Brief
How might we use the power of design to research & develop a methodology for equitable and inclusive experience design to be tested, adopted and evolved through academia and industry for the service and benefit for all.
Brief reframed Mission Statement
As a team we decided on our mission statement:
We endeavor to transform hopes for an equitable future into reality.
To realize empathy as action and foster equitable design.
How might we develop a framework with tools that design teams and leaders can use to pause in the design process to make it more equitable.
Designers should be able to learn about racism in the design process and how to counteract that.
ground reality.
Racism in America has left many, including designers of color with immense trauma. How do we design in a way that is inclusive, equitable, and diverse? As designers, we have the power to solve problems or make matters worse.
How can design be inequitable?
Traditionally design is framed as a marathon, an event with a clean finish line. This framing is naturally competitive, time-centric, and concerned with quantity over quality.
Equity was never built into this traditional framing, leaving design projects with winners and losers. While “sprints” are proven to drive results in design and are not invaluable or inequitable in nature, their language plays into this framing. When embedding equity into the design process, this language reinforces the oppressive system of white supremacy and superiority.
Understanding
the big tech
system.
To get a clearer picture of what’s happening at the root level, we started off by interviewing 40+ Subject matter Experts, Big Tech Designers, Diversity Equity & Inclusion [DEI] Experts, Activists and Users across the Black and African Diaspora.
This phase of primary research was supported/guided by an extensive literature review + EXF ethnography futures interview framework ideation.
Map: We inquired into & recorded people’s actual or existing images of the future.
Multiply: We then generated alternative scenarios to challenge or extend existing thinking.
Mediate :Translated those ideas about the ‘future/s’ into experiences: Tangible, immersive, visual / interactive representations.
Mount: Finally, we then staged those experiential scenario/s to be encountered by the original subjects / interviewees.
Map: We kept investigating and recording responses in a cyclic manner.
By understanding what’s happening at ground zero we were able to identify 6 main areas of opportunity in terms of Big tech’s role in ensuring an Equitable future for all.
➊ Education
➋ Company culture
➌ Tokenism
➍ Design Process
➎ Decision Making power
➏ Representation
Here’s a little overview of the 6 opportunity area that we deduced through a range of ethnographic activities / study.
Manifesting....
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