Sierra Sparks - A Designer's Responsibility for Inclusive Design in Tech

The designs and products produced by engineers, designers, and developers inherently affect the societies in which they are implemented, whether for better or for worse. Often times, new designs and technologies are developed without fully addressing this impact, and without full consideration of the needs for inclusive designs - designs that consider a wide variety of end-users and that actively work to eliminate bias or discriminative designs in their technologies. A lack of consideration for discriminative design can result in a discriminatory society, and a lack of diversity in design teams can result in ideas from certain groups not being valued. Examples ranging from hand soap dispensers not being able to recognize darker skin tones, to racially biased algorithms in healthcare, to crash test dummies being modelled after able-bodied men which increases the severity of injuries for women in car crashes, examples of discriminatory designs in tech are everywhere. This talk will discuss strategies to promote inclusive design and the importance of inclusive designing in the tech sector, in addition to the value of diversity in the tech sector to avoid discriminatory designs.