Demystifying Equitable Design
Setting up some common ground
Equity can be a funny term. Creators often talk about how they want whatever they send out into the world to be more equitable. For example, designers want to make their designs equitable. But what does that even mean? Most people don’t have a clear definition off-hand, and many (usually white, cis, neurotypical, etc.) people believe it boils down to just one thing: making everything equal or the same for everyone regardless of who they are and their needs. However, that isn’t truly what equity means.
For example, it's more than just making sure to use a stock photo of an inauthentically diverse group posing together every now and then.
To quote Antionette Carroll of the Creative Reaction Lab, "equality is giving people equal access, but equity is giving people equal outcomes." This means peoples’ needs differ, and in order to promote success, different things may need to be given on a per person basis. I personally practice trying to improve equity with design.
The skills are not big, daunting, or new
From my personal perspective, I think that equitable design has three levels of impact: Representational, Experiential, and Cognitive-behavioral. In the context of equitable design, I’d like to define them like this:
Representational design focuses on the concept of challenging the societal defaults and expectations in an authentic, positive way. Challenging expectations also improves attention and memory.
Experiential design focuses on accessibility, not just traditional WCAG or ADA accessibility, but also social, cultural, and technological access. Another way to think about this is a specific application of functional or UX design; intentionally design for user needs and emotions that are outside the norm.
Cognitive-Behavioral design focuses on targeted ways of influencing the way people think and behave. In this case, to think and act in a way that contributes and supports a more equitable society.
Look at these excerpts from each definition: "challenging expectations also improves attention and memory," "intentionally design for user needs and emotions that are outside the norm," and "influencing the way people think and behave."
These aren’t new skills or ideas, in design or elsewhere. Influencing the way people view the world has been around well before “user experience” was ever a coined term. Equitable Design isn’t a brand-new skillset, it’s an application of the best practices the industry already ascribes.
For any project size
Everyone consumes content, and designers are in the unique position of helping create that content. As Christopher Paul discusses in his book Wordplay and the Discourse of Video Games: Analyzing Words, Design, and Play, design is a powerful and important societal role – it isn’t isolated. Users and consumers project and represent themselves in what we create, and in turn we represent the world back to them in an influential manner. And what users choose to consume and use then influences the kind of work that gets funded. Marketers know that this cycle is also inherent to building brand loyalty. (Sorry Spock, Emotions Drive Business by Adam Morgan)
If the end-result will be viewed, then this will apply – regardless of the kind or size of project. Designers can have the ambition for large, systematic change while operating on a niche, local, brand, or worldwide level.
Taking that a step further, designer Rie Nørregaard said in her Adobe MAX 2018 talk “Designing for Humanity,” to the shift away from “designing for” to “designing with” by connecting with different people and contexts and stepping back from our own (especially, personally, being a member of the “default”). As a designer, this means actively involving your audiences and their perspective, rather than pulling just from generalized research or making assumptions from your own limited point of view, especially if you are what is “default” (i.e. white, cis, male, etc.) Caroline Criado Perez discusses multiple examples in-depth in her book Invisible Women.
It’s also good for business
There is a concern that comes up often when trying to bring more equity to design: how will this impact the business? Equitable design practices are not in conflict with business goals, and there is a mountain of evidence to back this up. Repeated studies show that companies that integrate social responsibility into their operations can expect positive financial returns. These companies also increase sales while reducing employee turnover. Diverse teams outperform homogenous teams almost every time. All of these things positivity impact business, regardless of what space they exist in.
Moving forward, consider how easy equity can be to include in your project. The technical skills are already there, and there are an abundance of resources and frameworks to help get things started available online easily and at no cost. It does, however, take personal development and a commitment to look outside of one’s own limited world. It takes pushing yourself and your team to find new and/or different ways of approaching things. Designing for societal defaults or status quo is easiest because it’s what has always been done, but doesn’t differentiate the business, give work the “wow” factor, or challenge norms in a positive way. Wouldn’t you rather create great work and work to make the world more equitable? I know that I would, and it’s something I work on every day and commit to doing in any project, large or small.
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Jacob Lowry is a white cis neuro-diverse designer living and working in San Diego, CA. He has over a decade of design experience working in consulting, in-house, and agency environments.
Sources:
"Antionette D. Carroll: Understanding Identity, Power, & Equity in Design Leadership"
Wordplay and the Discourse of Video Games: Analyzing Words, Design, and Play by Christopher Paul
Sorry Spock, Emotions Drive Business by Adam Morgan
Rie Nørregaard: https://twitter.com/norregaardrie
"Why Diverse Teams Are Smarter" by David Rock and Heidi Grant
"Delivering Through Diversity" by Vivian Hunt, Lareina Yea, Sara Prince, and Sundiatu Dixon-Fyle
Invisible Women by Caroline Criado Perez
“TEDxSwarthmore - Barry Schwartz - Why Justice Isn't Enough”
Cover photo by Michael Dziedzic on Unsplash
Portions of this article were contributed to write "Designing For Good: Equitable Design" with Kopius (formerly Valence).