Privilege isn’t my fault but it’s my responsibility.
That’s just one of many statements Tatiana Mac made during her speech at the #PerfMatters Conference 2019.
She also found out that empathy is a scam.
But let’s start at the beginning.
The Privilege Plugin
Mac designed something called the Privilege Plugin, which she uses to show bias and so-called privilege blocks that symbolise an invisible wall and are noticeable in most areas, from marketing to accessibility to, for example, segment the users, create personas, etc.
As Mac says, the more privilege you have, the higher are your chances to overcome this wall. So your privilege doesn’t define how far you can go, it more so sets a starting point. Despite the fact that the amount of privilege you are born with is completely random, anyone can choose how to go about theirs.
According to a 2019 report called the “majestic million”, around 80% percent of the top one million websites worldwide even fail to implement basic (low) contrast and missing alt texts and so on — that’s simply called ignorance.
How does this happen? It’s pretty simple — the majority of the people in charge only take themselves into consideration and this is quite a vicious circle, because they are mostly white, wealthy, cis-male identifying, hetero, able-bodied and neurotypical people with a lot of bias. So a lot of the things being created, websites, apps, technological advantages, fashion, skincare, make-up — are mostly designed to cater to the heavily-biased white cis experience.
Tearing down the wall
Many of you will now react indignantly, but take a moment and ask yourself — Do you use alt texts for your social media posts? Have you ever even thought about it? When creating content, do you have visually-impaired people in mind?
Well, me neither.
While learning more about Web-Accessibility from Eric Eggert this past semester and with everything that went down in the world concerning the BLM movement, I felt a tremendous amount of guilt. I read a lot about being an “ally”. But is it enough for white, able-bodied, middle class people to “stand in solidarity” with different groups and still take the responsibility of creating and just assuming what will work FOR them? As Mac said, it’s really important to exchange empathy with trust and to trust the user’s lived experience over the presumptions you might have (and 100% are having).
So educate yourself, trust the user and understand that not everything is made for your understanding. Period.
EdUcAtE UrSeLf:
- How Privilege Defines Perfomance Speech at the #PerfMatters Conference 2019- Tatiana Mac
- Inclusive Design for a Digital World: Designing with Accessibility in Mind — Regine Gilbert
- The subtle sexism of icons — Christina Ou
- How Bad Design Perpetuates Harmful Stereotypes — Kat Holmes
- Technically Wrong: Sexist Apps, Biased Algorithms, and Other Threats of Toxic Tech — Sara Wachter-Boettcher
- Algorithms of Opression — Safiya Umoja Noble
- What Works: Gender Equality by Design — Iris Bohnet
- A Primer to Web Accessibility for Designers — Nicholas Kramer
