Abstract
Design is often complicit in upholding inequitable structures, allowing bias and oppression to go unchallenged. While there has been substantial progress in challenging the agnostic orientations of design, many still ask, “How do I apply this to my work as a professional?” We seek to address this gap by offering a systematic description of five activity nodes that can inform and transform design practice. This research connects critical theories to professional design practice by offering a framework for anti-oppressive design praxis. The resulting conceptual model—a scaffolding for bringing a critical awareness of power into design methods—can support designers to take action in their daily design work.
Key words
My role in this research
Graduate Research Assistant to Dr. Jessica Meharry;
Workshop Facilitator to "Constructing Speculative Scenarios for Anti-oppressive Technologies" on Relating Systems Thinking and Design Symposium’21
Theoretical Framing
This research focuses on the ways in which design activities can function as mediators in the processes of designing for equitable outcomes and economies.
More specifically, we are looking at the design and development of information and communication technologies (ICTs).
An angry assemblage of algorithmic accountability
How does an understanding of the technology as a socio-material assemblage reveal new knowledge about the materiality of computation as well as systemic factors such as oppression? How do asymmetries of power and flows of oppression become amplified or attenuated within the systemic context of an information and communication technology (ICT)?
To understand the complexity of the actors involved in a case study of a biased commercial risk prediction algorithm, we created a ‘critical visualization’ that distills some of the key concepts of systemic inequities as a visual assemblage. This is an example of an iterative research through design (RtD) activity furthering our thinking at a critical point in the research.
This critical visualization examines a case study of bias in a medical algorithm which under-identified black patients for high-risk health prevention program by making the data set “color blind” (Obermeyer et al., 2019). I translated this case study into diagram in order to understand how designers might differently approach problem-framing and choice-making by visualizing the case as a socio-technical assemblage that includes concepts of justice and systemic inequity.
The research questions for this visualization are:
How does an understanding of the technology as a socio-material assemblage reveal new knowledge about the materiality of computation as well as systemic factors such as oppression?
How do asymmetries of power and flows of oppression become amplified or attenuated within the systemic context of an information and communication technology (ICT)?
Anti-oppressive design framework
Design is often complicit in upholding inequitable structures, allowing bias and oppression to go unchallenged. While there has been substantial progress in challenging the agnostic orientations of design, many still ask, “How do I apply this to my work as a professional?” Through this research, we seek to address this gap by offering a systematic description of five activity nodes that can inform and transform design practice. The goal is to connect critical theories to professional design practice by offering a framework for anti-oppressive design praxis. The resulting conceptual model—a scaffolding for bringing a critical awareness of power into design methods—can support designers to take action in their daily design work.
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