Hi, everyone. In this video, we will be talking about the importance of noticing exclusion as part of inclusive design and design justice practice.
So in the book Mismatch, Kat Holmes introduces the idea that designing for inclusion starts with recognizing exclusion, and we thought that was a really important place to start because noticing exclusion can be very challenging to do if you’re not a person who is systematically excluded and so in, you know, in the Design Justice reading that you do, that you’ll do, Dr. Costanza-Chock talks about being a trans person, going through TSA security and dealing with the situation there of the scanner and the pat downs and how that created a really problematic and often embarrassing and just generally problematic situation for them.
And what that story really brings up is the ways in which if you are not the person experiencing exclusions, you might not notice, right? A lot of us go to airports and don’t notice the ways in which that security screening can be exclusionary and challenging for certain folks. And so that was where we wanted to start was to really focus on honing our ability to notice exclusions.
I was reading rereading, Unpacking the Invisible Backpack recently, and it makes a similar point around that idea that when systems are built for you and when systems benefit you, it really takes a concerted effort to notice the impact of those systems on people for whom it was not built.
So one of the activities that we’ll do together is the exclusionary design wall of shame. And that’s an opportunity to sharpen your noticing skills and share what you’re noticing with each other. Yeah, and when we talk about starting to approach designs, I think a lot of times we if we aren’t folks who typically are excluded by designs, our typical approach to designs, whether that’s a process or a product or a social situation, we might design for what Dr. Sasha Costanza-Chock calls the unmarked user.
This is a person who we kind of assume is the default person for whom we’re designing. And if we’re not attentive to diverse folks for whom we might be designing, who might be impacted by our designs, we might end up designing for people who are at the center of the wheel of power and privilege.
And that looks like this [slide of Wheel of Power and Privilege]. This is a great kind of way of thinking about the ways in which if we don’t design intentionally to address the exclusions that certain folks might experience, we often tend to design for people who are most at the center of this wheel.
Those who have power because they have money, because they have a particular body type or size or ability. Because they are heterosexual. So there are lots of ways in which we design for those unmarked users who typically already have the most power in any kind of situation where they might be encountering designs.
And so this helpful framework, I think, reminds us not only to be attentive to exclusions, but then as we think about how to design, for, design for inclusion, to design more inclusively, that we need to start looking towards folks who are representing the wider range on that wheel of power and privilege.
Yeah, that’s a really helpful tool for visualizing, I think. When we’re designing and a point to make too is that we take a really broad view of who a designer is. That we’re all designers. And so one of the other things I appreciated about the Mismatch reading, because I’m a person who really likes models and frameworks as as tools to guide thinking and action. So one of the things I appreciated was the model of the five elements that contribute to a cycle of exclusion. And that was why we make, who makes it, how it’s made, who uses it, and what we make. And I think models like this can really help us to shape our noticing, especially if we’re early in our noticing journey or if we’re trying to practice noticing outside of our usual disciplinary context.
So it can help us to figure out what to look for, help us to shape our noticing, which is a step in breaking exclusionary habits and moving toward inclusion. One of the other things also that struck me in reading about this particular cycle is that Holmes mentions that the cycle of exclusion isn’t sequential. It’s not a straightforward process of moving from exclusion to inclusion.
Because, for example, you might identify how how it’s made that sort of part of the cycle as a barrier to inclusion.
And then maybe you’ve made some changes to modify that particular process to be more inclusive.
But unless we’re constantly noticing, there’s a chance that we’ll make a decision at that step, that includes some but excludes others. So I think in, you know, in other words, for me, one of the important takeaways is the idea that even when we’re using some of these models to help us think with, we have to be careful to understand that it’s not a checklist and that it’s not, it’s sort of a never ending process of noticing.
Yeah, that notion that inclusive design and design justice are iterative, I think, is a really important point, and ties, ties to something that comes out of the Design Justice reading as well, which is that design justice is about trying to understand or, you know, recognizing that every design has benefits and burdens and the purpose of design justice is to more equitably distribute the benefits and burdens of designs. Recognizing that there are folks for whom, folks who experience often more burdens associated with designs because of the way we are, because the way we are as a society.
And so as we think about more equitably distributing benefits and burdens of design that’s going to require iteration, it’s going to require us to ask the questions, OK, now who you know, who is who is being more burdened by this design? And how do we continue to think about more equitably distributing those burdens and those benefits?
So we expect that as we go through this process of talking about inclusive design and design, justice, we’ll be looking to develop not only mindsets and approaches that help us be attentive to inclusion and exclusion, when we look at designs and when we think about our own designs, but also approaches that help us continue to iterate towards a more equitable distribution of benefits and burdens.
