=Paper=
{{Paper
|id=Vol-2812/RDAI-2021_paper_6
|storemode=property
|title=Reexamining Human-centered Design Methods for Inclusive Technology
|pdfUrl=https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-2812/RDAI-2021_paper_6.pdf
|volume=Vol-2812
|authors=Lauren Pak
}}
==Reexamining Human-centered Design Methods for Inclusive Technology==
https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-2812/RDAI-2021_paper_6.pdf
Reexamining Human-centered Design Methods for Inclusive Technology
Lauren Pak, MSc.
Vanderbilt University
Accenture Technology UKI
lauren.s.pak@vanderbilt.edu
In today’s technology ecosystem, technology prod- Within the design community, this difference has
ucts are informed by user research that involves quantitative begun to be critically discussed as what is a user-centered
and qualitative methods. AI products are no exception and versus human-centered approach (Gasson 2003). Although
require accurately and robustly collected human data. both practices involve focusing on people in building tech-
Human-centered design, evangelized by design nology, one harbors the danger of exclusion or perpetuating
consultancies such as the Stanford Design School and inequality in society. Leader in user experience research and
IDEO, is an approach to problem-solving using empathy father of the Nielsen Norman Group, Donald Norman
and creativity to co-create usable and useful solutions. Best (2005), has argued that human-centered design can cause
practice in developing high-value prototypes includes an societal harm when designing with a focus on the individual.
open-ended approach that is grounded in user perspectives Oftentimes, technology products have a specific target audi-
in the problem identification and solution validation. Prob- ence. Building a successful product for that particular user
lem identification includes identifying end-user, creating group might in turn create technology that results in being
user personas, and conducting user interviews for under- harmful to a different social group. A prominent example is
standing the true challenge. Solution validation ranges from Google’s 2015 incident where image recognition incorrectly
ethnographic observations or guided click-through environ- tagged Black people as gorillas. Algorithmic bias, where alt-
ments assessing product usage, satisfaction and feedback hough AI is trained to properly recognize White people, falls
surveys, or interviews. Although user research has signifi- short when identifying other groups and in turn perpetuates
cant overlap with social science research techniques, the racism. Due to the algorithmic ‘black box’, it is even more
main difference is a lack of theory, methodological justifi- essential for cognitive designers to document robust meth-
cation, and meticulous control in sampling procedures. odological decisions for AI explainability.
Due to the fail-fast, agile ways of working em- It is important to also recognize that technology is
ployed in rapid prototyping builds, typically less time is in- not always the right nor the only solution for a particular
vested upfront into user research. Prototyping processes ask group or societal problem. Methodological choices must be
to build with the end-user in mind, often creating target per- selected with cultural understanding of end-users in mind.
sonas to manage scope. A target demographic does not Especially with technology being a recent phenomenon, at-
waive the need for user researchers to have a strong meth- titude might vary based on demographics, geography, or
odological justification and discussion on sample limitations ability. For example, Pivotal Acts, the foundation arm of the
or testing reliability and validity. However, user research be- big tech software company, using human-centered design
comes a check-box exercise that is used to validate the en- principles investigated and found that public toilets were not
visaged product with a few demographically representative being utilized by women in a refugee camp because men
end-users. Products are built with an evaluative rather than were congregating at night around the vicinity as the only
generative approach. Evaluative techniques such as inter- source of light in the camp.
views, surveys, or ethnography do not allow for an analysis By using an interdisciplinary approach to the crea-
of problem root-causes nor the relationship between differ- tion of technology, products can ensure rigorous methodo-
ent stakeholders or levels in a given system. The product logical processes that accounts for a diversity of perspective
only addresses immediate needs of the identified user demo- or limitations thereof, and most importantly in the develop-
graphic for the current problem instead of a future-proofing, ment of AI technologies, understanding of human behavior
systems thinking approach that maps the people and polices (Barker 1964). Undoubtedly, co-creating with end-users re-
impacting a social problem. sults in more applicable products. This research pushes the
Copyright © 2021 for this paper by its authors. Use permitted under Creative Commons License Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0).
design community one step further. Rather than simply al-
lowing the end-user to participate in technology design, it is
essential that equality and human rights are at the heart of
human-centered design to ensure that technology products
result in an outcome inclusive of all (Buchanan 2001). With
technology’s ultimate goal being increased efficiency, prod-
ucts must responsibly consider ramifications on society and
strive to improve quality of life of users without impinging
on the rights of other groups (Norman 2005). Effectiveness
cannot come at the cost of exclusion. This research is a
meta-analysis of global AI start-ups that are headquartered
the Western world, evaluating their design approach. Using
the ecological levels of analysis and the emphasis on both
applied and theory-based research from the field of commu-
nity psychology (Kelly 2006), this study will assess whether
a technology company’s product mission is framed as an in-
dividual or community-level solution and subsequent socie-
tal impact. This paper calls for a more holistic and action-
oriented approach to product design in order to enable
greater useability, accessibility, inclusion, and ultimately
human dignity and flourishing.
Bibliography
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for studying the environment of human behavior. Stanford, Cali-
fornia.: Stanford University Press.
Buchanan, R. 2001. Human Dignity and Human Rights; Thoughts
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35-39.
Gasson, S. 2003. Human-Centered vs. User-centered Approaches
to Information System Design. Journal of Information Technology
Theory and Application 5(2): 29-46.
Kelly, J. G. 2006. Becoming ecological: An expedition into com-
munity psychology. New York, New York.: Oxford University
Press.
Norman, D. A. 2005. Human-Centered Design Considered Harm-
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