Sabotaging Our Future Selves
I wrote a book.
What is accessibility?
Disabilities
1 in 4 New Zealanders identified as disabled
Visual impairments
Auditory impairments are wide-ranging
Motor impairments
Motion sensitivity
Cognitive impairments
Neurodiversity
So what is inclusive design then?
Accessibility
Inclusive Design
Language
Eek.
Accessibility is not binary.
More accessible is our eternal goal.
Iteration is our power.
Accessibility wins are usability wins.
SALES
Think of that old phrase “carrot or stick”…
Common tactics
Make your site accessible or someone will sue you.
Make your site accessible and you’ll get a bigger audience.
Make your site accessible or you’ll get bad publicity.
Make your site accessible because the usability benefits everyone.
Don’t shut people out.
It’s more than irritating.
1 in 4 New Zealanders identified as disabled.
53% of all disabled New Zealanders had more than one type of impairment
Impairments intersect.
Gender. Age. Abilities. Ethnicities. Wealth. Cultures. Socio-economic classes. Education. Upbringing.
People are not their disabilities.
Some impairments are temporary.
We are all ageing.
How does that affect our use of the web?
We sabotage our future selves.
We need to think in the long-term.
Research. Educate ourselves.
Hire diverse teams.
Diversify our source material.
Then we’re ready?
Don’t be colonial.
Anyone here look familiar?
What motivates them to build technology for us?
Systemic inequality
Money. Investors. Growth.
Their technology doesn’t recognise our needs.
Their technology is harmful to us.
Their technology excludes us.
Facebook signup
Because it’s easier to profile people when they fit in neat boxes.
Their technology enables harassment.
Because abusive engagement is more valuable than no engagement.
Their technology stops us from getting insurance and loans.
Because it’s more efficient to judge a person by the boxes we use to profile them.
Their technology passes our information on to authoritarian governments.
Inauguration-protest arrests lead to Facebook data prosecution
Because they already built the database of Muslim people.
Their technology comes with strings attached.
Facebook offered free internet to India.
Marginalised groups are more vulnerable to unethical technology.
The lives of marginalised people are the most at risk.
We can’t separate inclusive design from ethical practice.
The more we build harmful technology, the harder we make it to build ethical technology.
We sabotage our future selves.
Fight the misinformation.
Decoration, not design.
Question the business model.
If they make money doing it, they won’t risk changing it.
Think of a business and its products like it’s an apple.
The seeds of a product are it’s business model
What sprouts from the seeds is the core of a product.
Decentralised
Private
Secure
Open
Interoperable
Sustainable
Inclusive
This is how we design products that respect human rights.
Respects human effort
And then we can layer the delight on top.
Respect human experience.
Ethical Design
Decoration, not design.
Rotten fruit is burdensome to its creators
The burdensome fruit
If you sell rotten fruit, people will eventually complain.
Ugh. I didn’t get into tech for this.
We build the new everyday things.
Technology has to be more.
What is the carrot for doing the right thing?
Is there a stick for doing the wrong thing?
Where do we draw the line?
Where do we draw the line?
But I’m just one tiny person.
We are an industry made up of many persons.
You are not your job.
Use our social capital to be the change we want to see.
What is the change?
1: Be the advisor.
2: Be the advocate.
3: Be the questioner.
4: Be the gatekeeper.
5: Be difficult.
6: Be unprofessional.
7: Be the supporter.
Speaking up is risky.
But letting technology continue this way is riskier.
But you do have that power for yourself.
Thank you