We all want more diversity in tech. We rarely acknowledge that the experience of inclusion is the product of Org Design. Presented at O'Reilly Design Conference with Molly Beyer, #OReillyDesign, these slides share some practical tips and advice on increasing diversity through applied design thinking. Learn how to empathize and ideate in response to real needs instead of getting people to 'hack a hairdryer'.

1. Designing for Diversity in Design
Organizations
Presented to: O’Reilly Design
Conference, March 2017
Molly Beyer - @Beyer_Molly
Eli Silva - @EliSymeon

2. Who are We?
Molly Beyer, @beyer_molly
Anthropologist thinking about thick data in
civic tech. Computational ethics, public
health, ebola, emergencies. feminist. Likes
political art, noise, bikes.
Eli Silva, @EliSymeon
Product designer advocating for
#DiversityinTech. Cloud Computing, Design,
Ethics, Mutual Aid. Likes pancakes, politics
and languages.

3. Diversity
the outcome of a creative process aimed at increasing inclusion.

4. Design is about asking questions of who to include in
studies, and ‘are these the right things for the user?’

5. This is Water

6. Neurodiversity (n.)
the range of differences in individual brain function and
behavioral traits, regarded as part of normal variation in the
human population; used especially in the context of autistic
spectrum disorders.

7. “...autistic people shouldn’t have to pretend to be “normal,” to
be conventionally social, in much the way African-Americans
should not have to pretend to be white to be professionally
successful. True diversity entails a more radical form of
difference...one more extensive than what he regards as the
accommodational agenda.”
-David Platzer, Dissertation 2017

9. GenderMag.Org
A tool for testing for Gender Bias in software tools developed by Margaret Burnett,
Professor of Computer Science, Oregon State University

10. Existing gender differences in software
Motivation
Information Processing
Computer Self-Efficacy
Risk Aversion
Tinkering

11. “Ignoring or removing gender
[or other intersections] in
users makes it harder to
address implicit stereotypical
assumptions.”
-Ewa Luger, A Design for Life: Recognizing the
Gendered Politics Affecting Product Design,
2014

13. con-scien-tiz-ation
(critical consciousness)
praxis
(action based on conscientization)

14. Participatory Research
Define what existing needs and resources are from
users themselves, NOT just in testing or after an idea.

15. “...eliminate the possibility that we can
function as all-knowing silent
interrogators”
- bell hooks, Teaching to Transgress, 1994

16. “The first job we have to do is not design
for ourselves.”
– Erica Eden, 2015

17. Evaluating Impact
User-test across multiple intersections.
Connect with primary outcome of participatory research.
Are you answering the identified problem?

18. Designing for Diversity
in Design Organizations

19. We hear all the time:
The experience is the product.

20. The experience of inclusion
is the product of organizational design.

21. Image: Bonkers World, Manu

22. Image: Bonkers World, Manu

23. Many Diversity & Inclusion Initiatives are conceived
and executed with little visibility into what the
target audience desires or needs, and what
barriers they actually face.

24. After spending two years and
$265 million on the effort,
Google’s employee population was
only 2% black in 2016, the same
percentage as it was in 2014.
- Beth Winegarner, “Google’s Hardest
Moonshot: Debugging Its Race Problem”
Fast Company

25. “Top universities graduate black and hispanic
computer science and computer engineering
students at twice the rate that leading
technology companies hire them.”
– USA Today Study cited by Bonnie Marcus, Forbes 2015,
“The Lack of Diversity in Tech is a Cultural Issue”

26. Reducing the distance between designers and the
many populations they serve is perhaps the single
most important charge to the design profession
today.
– Beth Tauke, Korydon Smith, and Charles Davis;
Diversity and Design: Understanding the Hidden Consequences

27. Source: Margaret Hagan, dSchool

28. Diversity Debt (n.)
A concept in organizational design that illuminates the extra work that must
be done when decisions about culture and diversity are ignored or optimized
for short-term gains instead of applying the best overall solution.

29. - Susan Wu, “Welcome to Diversity Debt: The Crisis that Could Sink Uber”

30. “Some people don’t like to take responsibility for
their own shit. They blame everything in their life
on somebody else.”
—Uber CEO, Travis Kalanick, 2017

31. “If you’re not asking ‘how could this be used to
hurt someone,’ in your design/engineering
process, you’ve failed.”
– Zoe Quinn

32. Apply Design methods to people problems,
just like the stuff we make.

34. Literally start with people (Empathize)
Who is telling our inclusion story?
Ask if the story your company tells about its own
diversity and inclusion is coming from the ground up.
Suggestions:
Define ‘Culture Fit’ very tightly, on paper, so there’s
no ambiguity. Revisit often to check for bias.
Look at job descriptions you control for words like
“Dominate, competitive, pleasant.” (Descriptions that
use biased language get 42% fewer submissions.)1
Run language in job ads through a Gender Bias
Reduction Tool (Gender-decoder.katmatfield.com,
DotEveryone.com)
Image Credit: Pexels, Data Source: ZipRecruiter

35. Define the problem
What does the problem actually look like?
Suggestions:
Journey map your diversity gaps for biases and
obstructions.
Focus on high impact, high frequency problems
first, as these are likely to most demonstrably affect
some change.
Pick specific targets within these problems to
address, using a matrix of impact to
employees/candidates and ability to solve.
Generate specific insights and problem definitions.
“We use gendered language in 46% of job listings” is
a lot more powerful than “We have some bias in job
listings.”

36. Ideate in response to REAL needs
How does our idea meet the
needs we have heard?
Suggestions:
Before you generate a single idea, pick a feasible
goal, that you can align on.
Seriously and without question, involve the people
you’re reaching out to. Listen to them and let them
help steer your efforts.
Learn from your own internally marginal groups and
empower them to generate AND implement ideas
for change. (Women, Minorities, LGBT, Disabilities,
Neurodiversity)
Define a way to measure impact before you start
building something.
Image Credit: Pexels

37. Prototype for best fit
How might our culture/process
hurt someone?
Suggestions:
Do your research. Evaluate how your idea to
increase diversity has collected feedback and
gained visibility into the lives of those you’re
designing for.
If your campaign or effort focuses on a marginal
group, bring them to the table during the idea
phase, give them the power to shut you down.
Ask, “How might what we’ve built here hurt
someone,” BEFORE you release it into the wild.
Image Credit: William Stitt

38. Prove it
Did we build it right?
Suggestions:
Make sure you align to the double goals of “have a
positive, measurable impact,” and “specific solutions
to specific problems.”
Build a feedback loop into new D&I efforts, as well
as existing ones, and react to feedback as quickly
as possible.
You only get to succeed if you can demonstrate:
[ ] We Listened.
[ ] We Included.
[ ] We Empowered.

39. Build, Measure, Learn
Listen, Include, Empower

40. Build, Measure, Learn
Listen, Include, Empower

41. “As designers, we find ourselves not just
functioning as human-computer interface
designers, but as designers of an interface
to systems that never saw ‘users’ coming”
– Gretchen Anderson, “Designing for Social Impact”

42. “Washing one's hands of the conflict between
the powerful and the powerless means to side
with the powerful, not to be neutral.”
– Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed, 1968

43. Thank You
@beyer_molly
@elisymeon

44. Extra Resources
Buildwith.Org
28Blacks.com
Code2040.Org
BlackGirlsCode.com
LadiesThatUX.com
XXUX.Org
AlterConf.com
CreativeReactionLab.com
CHI Gender Workshop, 2014