Exclusion


Introduction

Exclusion is defined as the act of leaving someone out or the act of being left out.

"Exclusion happens when we solve problems using our own biases. Today when we talk about disabilities and related limitations, we include situational impairments, activity limitations, and restrictions on participation. We encompass mismatches between individuals and their environments, situations, and society as a whole."

We need to recognize the mismatches, the temporary and situational exclusions currently existing in society to create an inclusive culture. As a team, we examined the 3 subtopics under Exclusion: News Polarization, Disability & Social Exclusion, Digital Divide.


Case Studies

Media & Political Polarization

Disability & Social Exclusion

Digital Divide

Assessment & Mitigation

  • Interview with stakeholders (live user testing, users record feedback videos) & Co-design workshops at the product developing stage

While developing new products and new features, we should have all possible users involved in the process as early as possible. This will decrease the possibility of launching harmful or non-inclusive products.


  • Inclusive Design Tool Kit

  • Judgement call exercise (clarifying different standpoints)

When we can’t involve all possible users in the design process, we should make regular judgment call exercises to understand every possible perspective. In these exercises, we should always consider specific minority groups as stakeholders to analyze how a product or feature would affect them.


  • Transition design: backcasting & forecasting

We should always have in mind how our actions affect the world as a whole, and we should actuate to start big meaningful chances, even if they require massive efforts and extended time to happen.


Future Opportunities


To create a more inclusive world, we believe the opportunities and actions below need to be considered by these groups of stakeholders: business, policy makers, design, and media.

Business

Businesses need to increase awareness of their social responsibilities and how their products could be more inclusive to affect society.

They should create more developed frameworks to examine the current products and models and develop plans for mitigation. Discussions and consideration could be put into thinking about not feeding the users what they want but what they should know.

Within companies, there should be guilds and committees set up to advocate diversity, inclusivity, and responsibility (in recruiting, product development, employee feedback loops, and company culture)


Policy Makers

Policymakers should focus on protecting the people and decrease all inequality gaps present in society. They should defend underrepresented groups and listen to minorities instead of making policies that only benefit them and big corporations. In an ideal society, we would not need community-based organizations to do the work that politicians should be doing: fight for a better community for everyone.




Design

Design schools should consider making responsible design mandatory and address its importance to future designers.

Current designers need more understanding of society's systemic problems and self-examine to understand the current industry's negative impacts. Designers should also get out of their bubbles and learn how to collaborate with other stakeholders for different perspectives. As designers, it's crucial they are advocating responsible design in each industry they work in and call for creating frameworks and guidelines to check if the design is responsible and inclusive.


Media

The media should gain a deeper understanding of the systematic problems and be more responsible for raising public awareness on social issues to advocate for underprivileged groups. Better frameworks should be developed to create more open space for diverse discussions and feedback to the media.

The media should also stay informed about accessibility tools and create inclusive guidelines for the media industry to follow:

1) consider inclusive pronouns (they/them/theirs, students, Rams, everyone) 2) Avoid gendered emojis if possible and don't assume gender or identity online 3) Make text accessible and don't rely on color to convey meaning 4) Include descriptions on photos and captions on videos (for context and screen readers)