As a person whose career to date has largely happened in and around various technology-heavy industries, I often catch myself thinking about a new technology and what that technology can do, before I consider the end user needs that could be solved with it. The problem with this technology-first approach is that centering the technology and not the person often results in solutions that only partially address my students’ actual needs.
Worse, by focusing on what a specific technology could do, I risk losing sight of what my students’ needs even are. In Design Thinking for Libraries from IDEO, the authors point out that technical solutions are always a dance between what users need, what is technically feasible, and what is financially affordable. Innovation takes place at this intersection of desirability, feasibility, and viability (IDEO, 2015).
Doing this work means seeking out technologies that break down barriers to information and help create a more inclusive and accessible community of learners. An example of this sort of technology is Talking Points, an on-the-fly translation app that librarians and educators can use to communicate with students and their families in their preferred language. Abby Gratzer-Owen and I use an AI-powered translation service in our "Listen to Us! Graphic Novel Project" to enable students who have family members who speak other languages at home to give them a copy of their completed graphic novel in their preferred language. Translation and caption-writing services exist for podcasts and videos as well.
Another important practical day-to-day step is to keep accessibility in mind in every communication and adhering as much as possible to the accessibility standards as laid out by W3C in online communications and educational resources.
References cited on this page
IDEO. (2015). Design thinking for libraries toolkit: A toolkit for patron-centered design. https://designthinkingforlibraries.com/
Other resources informing this view are listed on the References page.