Diversity-friendly software

Shireen Mitchell - @digitalsistaJon Pincus - @jdp23

SXSW 2017

References: http://bit.ly/div5y-links

Agenda

Anti-patterns

Best practices

Emerging techniques

Challenges

A path forward

Three aspects of diversity in software

The people and teams that create software

The processes we use to create software

Supporting diversity in the software itself

Software today works best for

people like its creators

http://fusion.net/story/327103/leslie-jones-twitter-racism/

https://www.buzzfeed.com/charliewarzel/a-honeypot-for-assholes-inside-twitters-10-year-failure-to-s?utm_term=.ohyn7BZyz#.idBwk0BKo

https://www.propublica.org/article/machine-bias-risk-assessments-in-criminal-sentencing

Software reinforces power dynamics

SoftwarePeople andCommunities

create

empowers

Agenda

Anti-patterns

Best practices

Emerging techniques

Challenges

A path forward

Best practices

Diverse representation, inclusive culture, equitable policies

Setting intention - intersectionally

Accessibility

Flexible self-identification of gender, race,and pronouns

Questions: diversity, inclusion, equity

How diverse is your team and community?

How inclusive is your culture?

How equitable is your organization?

What are you doing to increase diversity, inclusion, and equity?

How committed is the senior leadership - and the entire organization?

Who's responsible for it - and do they have the time and resources to make an impact?

Setting intention - intersectionally

Make diversity a priority

Educate your team and community

Avoid problematic language in products and code

Intention: Questions to ask yourself

Is diversity as a goal and a priority?

If so, how are you communicating that internally and externally?

Do you have a Diversity Statement and a Code of Conduct?

Do people in the organization understand microagressions?

How are you educating your team and community?

Are you encouraging a "call-in" culture?

What standards, tools, and processes do you have about problematic language?

Accessibility

Design for people with disabilities from the beginning, including

Supporting screen readers and other assistive technologies

Keyboard-only navigation

Color vision impairment

Hard of hearing or deaf

Seizure disorders and cognitive disabilities

Accessibility: Questions to ask yourself

Are you designing for accessibility from the beginning?

Do you have accessibility expertise throughout the team?

Do you include accessibility in your testing?

Does everybody on the team use the software in accessibility modes?

What automated accessibility tools do you use?

What are you doing to increase awareness and understanding?

Flexible, optional self-identification

Allow flexibility (not just a fixed list)

Allow multiple choices; e.g., somebody who’s multiracial may be black and Latinx

Let people decline to answer

Avoid the term “other”

Let people choose the pronouns they prefer

Self-identification: Questions to ask yourself

Do people have a flexible way to specify their race, gender, orientation, ...?

Does it support multiracial, asexual, gender-fluid, and other frequently-marginalized people?

Is it optional?

Can people choose their preferred pronouns?

Have you listened to feedback from a diverse group of people?

Agenda

Anti-patterns

Best practices

Emerging techniques

Challenges

A path forward

Emerging Techniques

Gender HCI

Threat modeling for harassment

Avoiding algorithmic bias

Gender HCI

Gender differences in human-computer interaction

Gender HCI: five key facets

Self-efficacy: how confident are people in their abilities?

Information-processing style: start by gathering fairly complete information, or try something promising and backtrack if necessary?

Risk aversion: how comfortable are people with risk?

Tinkering: how much do people playfully experiment with the software?

Motivation: interest in technology for its own sake, or in aid of accomplishing something?

Gender Mag

A gender-specialized cognitive walkthrough

and a set of four personas, for finding gender HCI problems in software

http://gendermag.org/

Threat modeling for harassment

Threat modeling is a standard security technique

An adversary attacks the systems

Defenses prevent attacks

Mitigations reduce the effect

Harassers = adversaries

Work with experts (aka targets) as well as studying patterns of harassment techniques

Algorithmic biases

Analyze algorithms for “fairness”

What does “fairness” mean in your context?

Work with social scientists as well as techies

Be wary of biases in training sets and historical data

Biases can be race, gender, class, cultural, urban/rural, age, ...

Make sure algorithms transparent enough that you can analyze them for fairness

Agenda

Anti-patterns

Best practices

Emerging techniques

Challenges

A path forward

Challenges - and responses

Diversity is typically seen as low priority and divisive

Choose to prioritize - in an inclusive way

See diversity as an asset to product development

Look for ways diversity can give a strategic advantage

Diversity failures can have huge financial, PR, and strategic consequences

Inability to pivot, expand the audience, exit, ...

Challenges - and responses

Lack of knowledge about diversity

Treat it just like you would any other key skill your organization doesn’t have enough of

Budget time and money for training, education, consultants

Challenges - and responses

Investment patterns favor cis straight white male focused products

Look for non-traditional investments (crowdfunding, etc.)

We’re seeing more forward-looking decision-makers who get it

We need a few breakthrough success as proof points!

Agenda

Anti-patterns

Best practices

Emerging techniques

Challenges

A path forward

Start with the highly marginalized

Women of color

Gender-diverse people

People with disabilities - including “invisible disabilities”

...

It seems easier to start designing for the usual suspects(cis straight white able-bodied techie guys)

But that leaves you with a diversity debt that’s hard to overcome

Start with the highly marginalized

There are great designers and developers from marginalized communities out there

Get them on your team - as leaders

Bring them in as consultants, early users, beta testers, advisors

Prioritize their needs

The industry is primed for change

Let’s create a virtuous cycle!

Software that embeds diversity

Diverse, Inclusive

People andCommunities

create

empowers

Diversity-friendly software

Shireen Mitchell - @digitalsistaJon Pincus - @jdp23

SXSW 2017

References: http://bit.ly/div5y-links