This is my presentation for my Final Major Project Proposal and Thesis research done examining potential and fun solutions that the tech workplace can adopt to mitigate unconscious bias that is potentially counteracting diversity efforts and negatively impacting the capacity for innovation.

1. An Interaction Design Approach to
Mitigating Unconscious Bias in the
Tech Workplace
"Nothing in all the world is more dangerous than
sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.” –
Martin Luther King Jr.

2. Google - Making the
Unconscious Conscious

3. What is Unconscious Bias?
• Human beings are
wired to see patterns
as a survival tool.
• Our perceptions are
shaped by past
experience,
indirect/direct
messaging,

4. The important task is to break the image information down into meaningful
components, and thereby perceive the nature of the objects in view.[

5. MIT

6. Implicit bias refers to the attitudes or stereotypes that affect our understanding,
actions, and decisions in an unconscious manner. These biases, which
encompass both favorable and unfavorable assessments, are activated
involuntarily and without an individual’s awareness or intentional control.
…implicit biases are not accessible through introspection.

7. Identity Triggers
ETHNICITY
Disability
Skin color
Weight
Gender
Height
Body Language
Clothing
Attractiveness
sexual orientation
Accent

8. Over 1,000 studies in the past 10 years alone have conclusively shown that if
you’re human, you have bias, and that it impacts almost every variation of
human identity: Race, gender, sexual orientation, body size, religion, accent,
height, hand dominance, etc. The question is not "do we have bias?" but
rather "which are ours? [Fast Company; 2014]

9. Micro-Aggressions

10. Micro-Aggressions
“Brief and commonplace daily verbal, behavioral, or
environmental indignities, whether intentional or unintentional,
that communicate hostile, derogatory, or negative racial slights
and insults toward people of color”. -Developed in 1970 by a Harvard Medical
School psychiatrist named Chester M. Pierce to refer to both verbal and non-verbal racial indignities
targeting African Americans.

11. Scenarios
MicroInsults
MicroInvalidations
Microassault

12. Negative Impacts
• Exclusion from formal or informal networks
• Denial of mentoring or developmental opportunities such as
secondments and training that was made available to others
• Differential management practices such as excessive monitoring
and documentation or deviation from written policies or standard
practices
• Disproportionate blame for an incident
• Assignment to less desirable positions or job duties
• Treating normal differences of opinion as confrontational or
insubordinate
• Characterizing normal communication as rude or aggressive
• Penalizing a person for failing to get along with someone else, e.g.
a co-worker or manager, when one of the reasons for the tension is
racially discriminatory attitudes or behaviour of the co-worker or
manager [Jaferi, B.A., J.D., T. (2014)]

13. “Blink” by Malcolm Gladwell
“It seems not only unfair, but patently absurd
to choose a CEO because of height, just like
it is unfair and absurd to give employees
lower performance evaluations solely
because they are overweight. Or to prescribe
medical procedures to people more often
because of their race. Or to treat the same
people different ways because of their
clothing. Or even to call on boys more often
than girls when they raise their hands in
school.
And yet, all of these things continuously
happen, and they are but a small sampling
of the hundreds of ways we make decisions
every day in favor of one group, and to the
detriment of others, without even realizing
we’re doing it. “

14. Why the
Tech
Industry?

15. Why Diversity is Important

16. “Identity diversity
among intelligent
people on a team
contributes more to
effective problem-
solving, than a team
comprising of the
best performing,
intelligent people,
without identity
diversity”
Scientific American,
2016

17. Leaders who give diverse voices equal airtime are nearly twice as likely as
others to unleash value-driving insights, and employees in a “speak up” culture
are 3.5 times as likely to contribute their full innovative potential.
- Harvard Business Review, 2013

18. Employees of firms with 2-D diversity are 45% likelier to report a
growth in market share over the previous year and 70% likelier
to report that the firm captured a new market
.

19. Harvard Business Review
Research, 2013
Most respondents, however—78%—work at
companies that lack 2-D diversity in
leadership.
Without diverse leadership, women are 20%
less likely than straight white men to win
endorsement for their ideas; people of color
are 24% less likely; and LGBTs are 21% less
likely.

20. Negative Impacts on Workplace
The economic literature finds that discrimination
in the workplace -- whether based on gender,
ethnicity, race, religion or other factors — has serious
economic consequences.
-Lower Profits
-Reduced Wages & Underemployment
-Reduced Economic Growth
-Higher Turnovers & Employee Complaints
-Reduces Job Performance
“There’s a price to be paid for workplace
discrimination—$64 billion. That amount
represents the annual estimated cost of losing
and replacing more than 2 million American
workers who leave their jobs each year due to
unfairness and discrimination.” - Center for
American Progress

21. Is it Necessary to Diversify?
“It’s crucial for politicians, community leaders, and policymakers
to pay attention to these changes as their decisions about how
to incorporate this generation into the new American
mainstream hold important implications for our nation’s future
prosperity.”-Brookings Institute

22. Challenges to Addressing
Unconscious Bias
discrimination
oppression
dominance
heterosexism
male privilege
subordination gender expectations
microaggression
inequality
double standards

23. Reactions to Trainings/Forums
“It is easier to become defensive, argue the
meaning or ignore these interactions than it
is to learn how the language of diversity
affects others and impacts all aspects of our
lives. And, if we can’t talk productively about
something, then we can’t do anything about
it.”

24. Direct Approach
“Because perpetrators are generally well-
meaning and microaggressions are subtle,
their recipients often experience attributional
ambiguity, which may lead them to dismiss
the experience and blame themselves as
overly sensitive.[17] If challenged by the
minority person or an observer, perpetrators
will often defend their microaggression as a
misunderstanding, a joke, or something small
that shouldn't be blown out of proportion.[18]”
Ellen Pao “The Pao Effect”

25. How can an interaction design
approach help to mitigate unconscious
bias in the tech industry?

26. Empathy
Refers to our ability to identify and
understand other peoples’emotions.
• listening
• understanding
• performance
• employee satisfaction

27. Virtual Reality & Empathy
Exploring and experimenting with the potential of Virtual Reality to
Mitigate Unconscious Bias
.

28. Virtual Reality & Machine Learning
Virtual Reality --
Game Development to increase empathy;
reveal bias; mitigate bias; improve social behavior,
decision-making.

29. Virtual Reality as Training Tool

30. VR Behavior Impacts

31. Virtual Reality Adoption in
Tech

32. Machine Learning --
Gather data, and use algorithms to discover
hidden patterns of unconscious behavior
affecting decision-making

33. Design Approaches
IDEO
• Cultural Probe
• Cross-Cultural Comparisons
• Cognitive Task Analysis
• Cognitive Mapping
• Character Profiles
• Card Sort
• Extreme User Interviews*
• Experience Prototype*
• A Day In The Life
• Try it Yourself*
• Surveys & Questionnaires
• Social Network Mapping
My Experience Prototype

34. Identifying High Risk Scenarios
Performance Reviews Leadership Decisions

35. UX Research

36. ‘Anti-Bias’ Exercise Games
• Exposure & Empathy
• Bias Awareness:
Find the 3 qualified candidates for this role in a room of ten different
diverse characters.
o Provide each diverse character with a visual cue that might clue into person’s hobby relative
to the task)
• Targeted Bias Mitigation:
First Person character relies on help from diverse characters
• preferably focused on their high bias areas) to overcome challenges/get to higher levels?

37. ‘Anti-Bias’ Exercise Games
• Data Measurement
Maze with room of different faces and diversity. Character has to find a
way out of the maze with clues in each room.
o Machine learning or manual analysis of choices made and interaction in various
rooms, does how long a person stay in a room reveal bias?
o Should be noted in association with comfort levels, route choices.
• Scenarios: Recruitment
Find the 3 best candidates for the job in a room of ten different people within 2
minutes.
o Objective: Exercising the ability to look for other factors besides physical
characteristics to rely on for best merit.
Ex: If User has high bias towards ppl with disability; can play a game where
they have to rely on help from people with these attributes to advance in the
game.

38. Proposed Outcome
Several games designed to mitigate bias and promote
empathy in identified high-risk bias + common scenarios
in the workplace that can be played any time.
Ideally, games will be played a few minutes prior to
entering real life workplace scenarios.
Or can also be played at any time, frequent basis during
breaks taken throughout the workday as a professional
development tool.