theamazingfencer's review against another edition
informative
slow-paced
4.5
All in all a really great book. I found it slow to get through but I like the concepts from it. I think generally with books like this I have an issue with the fact that they just talk about the problem but don't talk about potential solutions but this one does. In fact it is essentially the focus of the book. I don't know how practical it is to implement these design processes but I agree with the author that we might as well try.
Feel like I need to read this again.
Feel like I need to read this again.
hanelisil's review
challenging
hopeful
informative
inspiring
slow-paced
4.5
Together, let's build the worlds we need!
Great resource - I always use this scholar's article of the same title/topic as an intro to my urban design class. Still, took me over a year to get through this text. It's chock-full of references, resources, and model organizations to learn about. Not something I would read again, but super valuable contribution to design and social justice fields/work!
jakeyjake's review
As a UX designer at a large tech company, I often wonder about the negative effects my work has on the world, or rather, the effect what I design has on certain people. I'm sure that I haven't had a big positive effect on people, but has the work I've done in some ways negatively impacted people, especially those already disadvantaged in society? As designers, we often talk about tradeoffs. There are tradeoffs in terms of visual and interface decisions (aesthetic appeal vs contrast and legibility, for example), tradeoffs in terms of money-making decisions (how many ads should we show at the top of a search page is a tradeoff between $ and actually being helpful to people), and tradeoffs between who—of all the people that might use the app/site—gets prioritized. This last one, at least to me, is the one we as designers don't speak about enough. We don't acknowledge the ways we prioritize some people over others. We don't explicitly call out who benefits and who might be harmed.
Sasha Costanza-Chock's book attempts to address this head on. "This book is about the relationship between design and power," she begins. "It's a call for us to heed the growing critiques of the ways that design... too often contributes to the reproduction of systemic oppression."
The first chapter quotes the Design Justice Network's Principles in their entirety. If you for some reason can't get a copy of this book, searching and reading those principles could almost function as cliff notes. This part summarizes much of the book to me: "Design justice rethinks design processes, centers people who are normally marginalized by design, and uses collaborative, creative practices to address the deepest challenges our communities face." Some of the principles include things like "We see the role of the designer as a facilitator rather than an expert." and "We work towards sustainable, community-led and controlled outcomes" (tied closely to the phrase 'Nothing about us without us.') "We look for what is already working at the community level. We honor and uplift traditional, indigenous, and local knowledge and practices." See the full list here: https://designjustice.org/read-the-principles
Those three particular principles both struck and resonated with me because they seemed to challenge the current process in dramatic ways, but also make so much sense.
The book utilizes and repeatedly returns to Patricia Hill Collin's term 'the matrix of domination' as a conceptual model for designers to hold in mind as they consider who should be centered and who should ultimately be accounted to. This too resonated with me. There are so many ways that as workers in tech, launching products for millions of people to use, that we unwittingly perpetuate systemic injustice and buoy up existing power structures and norms (esp harming B/I/PoC folks, Disabled people, and LGBTQI+ people). Beyond that, the settler colonial spirit feels alive and burning in the boardrooms of Silicon Valley. There's strong competition with local companies all over the world and these American companies are using the advantages of their billion-dollar warchests and haloed brand recognition to dominate wherever they can. One problem is that there's minimal investment in hiring locally, in being led by local communities, and in being accountable to those communities. Products built predominantly by wealthy cis white people are given a quick linguistic translation (often algorithmically) and then immediately shipped to places all over the world without further consideration. I don't know if there's a term for that, but I call it 'digital colonialism' with my friends.
Unfortunately, if you're in a similar situation to me (that is, if you're not a high-level decision maker at your company, but just a worker-bee type whose occasional agitating for change usually gets written off as well-intentioned but not pragmatic in an organization whose unspoken number-one rule is to make money), you may find this book leaves you frustrated with your organization. I've tried to gently prod some leaders in my org towards "prioritizing design work that shifts advantages to those who are currently systematically disadvantaged within the matrix of domination," and while I don't doubt the goodness of my coworkers's hearts, let's just say I don't see big changes to our 'spiral of exclusion' coming down from the top. Not with executive pay packages structured as they are...
My hope, however, is that if enough people read and understand the goodness in the principles here that a collective frustration may boil over into bringing about institutional change in many companies. In the meantime, these principles can be applied—as much as possible without full buy in from the senior leadership of your institution—by each one of us individually.
Chapters overview
Values. What values do we encode and reproduce in the objects and systems that we design?
Practices. Who gets to do design? How do we move toward community control of design processes and practices?
Narratives. What stories do we tell about how things are designed?
Sites. How do we make design sites accessible to those who will be most impacted by design processes?
Pedagogies. How do we teach and learn about design justice?
The book is full of citations of other designers, educators, and activists and my list of books and zines and sites for follow-up reading is waiting for me now. (It's clear that Sasha Costanza-Chock wants to give credit to the many people who have done this work, though much credit should be given to her for bringing much of it together here into something cohesive and powerful.)
--
Other notes and quotes
"Artifacts have politics."
"under neoliberal multicultural capitalism, most of the time designers unintentionally reproduce the matrix of domination (white supremacist heteropatriarchy, capitalism, and settler colonialism). "The cult of the new and shiny" - 'making something new is valued more and is better rewarded than caretaking, maintaining, or supporting something old.'
"dysaffordances" - an object that requires some users to misidentify themselves to access its functions (having to choose Male or Female to proceed as a Trans* person; facial detection technology that doesn't recognize dark-skinned faces)
"One-third world" is Chandra Mohanty's reformulation of dated "first world" term
"going slower is worth it to build a better, more just and sustainable world."
Some groups to follow
Algorithmic Justice League
And Also Too
Design Justice Network
https://designjustice.org/zines
blackfeminisms.com
thejustdatalab.com
codingrights.org
https://platform.coop/
stocksy
Resonate.is
Contratados.org
Sasha Costanza-Chock's book attempts to address this head on. "This book is about the relationship between design and power," she begins. "It's a call for us to heed the growing critiques of the ways that design... too often contributes to the reproduction of systemic oppression."
The first chapter quotes the Design Justice Network's Principles in their entirety. If you for some reason can't get a copy of this book, searching and reading those principles could almost function as cliff notes. This part summarizes much of the book to me: "Design justice rethinks design processes, centers people who are normally marginalized by design, and uses collaborative, creative practices to address the deepest challenges our communities face." Some of the principles include things like "We see the role of the designer as a facilitator rather than an expert." and "We work towards sustainable, community-led and controlled outcomes" (tied closely to the phrase 'Nothing about us without us.') "We look for what is already working at the community level. We honor and uplift traditional, indigenous, and local knowledge and practices." See the full list here: https://designjustice.org/read-the-principles
Those three particular principles both struck and resonated with me because they seemed to challenge the current process in dramatic ways, but also make so much sense.
The book utilizes and repeatedly returns to Patricia Hill Collin's term 'the matrix of domination' as a conceptual model for designers to hold in mind as they consider who should be centered and who should ultimately be accounted to. This too resonated with me. There are so many ways that as workers in tech, launching products for millions of people to use, that we unwittingly perpetuate systemic injustice and buoy up existing power structures and norms (esp harming B/I/PoC folks, Disabled people, and LGBTQI+ people). Beyond that, the settler colonial spirit feels alive and burning in the boardrooms of Silicon Valley. There's strong competition with local companies all over the world and these American companies are using the advantages of their billion-dollar warchests and haloed brand recognition to dominate wherever they can. One problem is that there's minimal investment in hiring locally, in being led by local communities, and in being accountable to those communities. Products built predominantly by wealthy cis white people are given a quick linguistic translation (often algorithmically) and then immediately shipped to places all over the world without further consideration. I don't know if there's a term for that, but I call it 'digital colonialism' with my friends.
Unfortunately, if you're in a similar situation to me (that is, if you're not a high-level decision maker at your company, but just a worker-bee type whose occasional agitating for change usually gets written off as well-intentioned but not pragmatic in an organization whose unspoken number-one rule is to make money), you may find this book leaves you frustrated with your organization. I've tried to gently prod some leaders in my org towards "prioritizing design work that shifts advantages to those who are currently systematically disadvantaged within the matrix of domination," and while I don't doubt the goodness of my coworkers's hearts, let's just say I don't see big changes to our 'spiral of exclusion' coming down from the top. Not with executive pay packages structured as they are...
My hope, however, is that if enough people read and understand the goodness in the principles here that a collective frustration may boil over into bringing about institutional change in many companies. In the meantime, these principles can be applied—as much as possible without full buy in from the senior leadership of your institution—by each one of us individually.
Chapters overview
Values. What values do we encode and reproduce in the objects and systems that we design?
Practices. Who gets to do design? How do we move toward community control of design processes and practices?
Narratives. What stories do we tell about how things are designed?
Sites. How do we make design sites accessible to those who will be most impacted by design processes?
Pedagogies. How do we teach and learn about design justice?
The book is full of citations of other designers, educators, and activists and my list of books and zines and sites for follow-up reading is waiting for me now. (It's clear that Sasha Costanza-Chock wants to give credit to the many people who have done this work, though much credit should be given to her for bringing much of it together here into something cohesive and powerful.)
--
Other notes and quotes
"Artifacts have politics."
"under neoliberal multicultural capitalism, most of the time designers unintentionally reproduce the matrix of domination (white supremacist heteropatriarchy, capitalism, and settler colonialism). "The cult of the new and shiny" - 'making something new is valued more and is better rewarded than caretaking, maintaining, or supporting something old.'
"dysaffordances" - an object that requires some users to misidentify themselves to access its functions (having to choose Male or Female to proceed as a Trans* person; facial detection technology that doesn't recognize dark-skinned faces)
"One-third world" is Chandra Mohanty's reformulation of dated "first world" term
"going slower is worth it to build a better, more just and sustainable world."
Some groups to follow
Algorithmic Justice League
And Also Too
Design Justice Network
https://designjustice.org/zines
blackfeminisms.com
thejustdatalab.com
codingrights.org
https://platform.coop/
stocksy
Resonate.is
Contratados.org
immao's review
5.0
I literally based my thesis recommendations on the design justice principles. "Nothing about us without us" is my national anthem.