Discussion no.02, Default Discrimination Is the Glitch Systemic?
Link to Reading
Introduction
This chapter from Ruha Benjamin's book Race After Technology talks about something called "Default Discrimination," in short, that the technologies we encounter today are designed by people with a default user in mind that is white, straight, cis and able-bodied. This is in spite of the supposition that these technologies are neutral.
The language of how to "fix" technological issues (debugging, detecting glitches, etc), can hide larger issues and reduce how we hold engineers accountable for their decisions (think also about design ideas you might be familiar with like "The Crystal Goblet").
Benjamin also discusses possible solutions that think about the default user in a different way, or thinks about what might be called "edge cases" as necessary components for a solution.
Questions to focus responses
(you do not need to answer these specifically but can simply use them as a jumping off point)
- Do you feel implicated in this idea of "default discrimination"?
- Can you think of more examples of "default discrimination"?
- How does Benjamin expand ideas that Norman brings up (usability/affordances/signifiers)?
- What are your thoughts on technology actually being neutral? Has this been an assumption you have made before?
- Should we think of the "fixes" for these defaults as a matter of better design, a larger cultural or structural change? Why or why not?
- How is it the designer's responsibility to consider their own biases or re-examine defaults?
What to submit
Please provide a .PDF, .TXT, .MD, or .RTF file that" evidences your reading and comprehension of the material
Link to Source
This chapter was captured from this link↗. Shoutout to whoever uploaded it there.
If you'd like to read the rest of Ruha Benjamin's book and support her work you can find it here↗