John Powell from Hypergiant speaks at SDGC19 in Toronto. Despite our best intentions, contemporary design practice increases inequity, erodes privacy, and decays happiness. Human centered design methods are assumed to be inherently self-correcting and technology and data to be neutral, but this has proven to be far from true. Let's interrogate design practice and explore more ethical methods. Become a member! https://www.service-design-network.org Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/sdnetwork Or on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/2933277 Like us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ServiceDesignNetwork/ Behind-the-scenes on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/servicedesignnetwork/

1. We have met the
enemy and they
are us.
JOHN R. POWELL
DESIGN DIRECTOR
HYPERGIANT
AUSTIN, TX
POWELL.JOHNR@GMAIL.COM
HYPERGIANT.COM

2. Charles
Allen
Powell
8 MONTHS OLD

3. WHAT IS GOOD DESIGN?
Good design is invisible.
Good design requires empathy.
Good design is beautiful.
Good design delights users.
Good design meets user needs.
Good design is good business.
Etc.

4. Baogang
Steel and
Rare
Earth
Complex
MONGOLIA

5. 6 miles

6. Brain Drain: The Mere
Presence of One’s
Own Smartphone
Reduces Available
Cognitive Capacity
JOURNAL OF THE ASSOCIATION OF
CONSUMER RESEARCH, APRIL 2017

7. Increases in Depressive
Symptoms, Suicide-Related
Outcomes, and Suicide Rates
Among U.S. Adolescents After
2010 and Links to Increased
New Media Screen Time
CLINICAL PSYCHOLOGICAL SCIENCE
NOVEMBER 2017

9. The impulse of giving everyone the
life of a king isn't bad, but the
implementation has destroyed
culture and environment.
DORI TUNSTALL, DEAN, FACULTY OF DESIGN
OCAD UNIVERSITY, TORONTO, CANADA

10. Treats people as a means to an end.
Focuses on growth at all costs.
Uses empathy to exclude.
NEGATIVE AFFECTS OF HUMAN CENTERED DESIGN

11. Treats people as a means to an end.
Focuses on growth at all costs.
Uses empathy to exclude.
NEGATIVE AFFECTS OF HUMAN CENTERED DESIGN

12. The Ugly Truth About Your
Takout: NYC's delivery
workers are often
exploited and underpaid.
INSIDER
CAROLINE PRADERIO
FEB 2019

13. Uber unabashedly states that
denying workers of basic
employment protections like
minimum wage, Social
Security contributions, and
other benefits is essential to
their business model.
“IT’S NOT RIGHT”: WHY UBER AND LYFT DRIVERS WENT ON STRIKE
BRYCE COVERT, VOX
MAY 2019

14. User Product

16. It reduces humans to a single
behavior, effectively supporting a
view of people as more like robots
whose sole function is to use a
product or feature.
ADAM LEFTON, LEAD CONTENT STRATEGIST, PAYPAL

18. The idea is that, essentially, you’re
in a person’s head and understand
how they feel and what they think.
In my opinion that’s impossible…
DON NORMAN, DIRECTOR OF THE DESIGN LAB AT THE UNIVERSITY OF
CALIFORNIA, SAN DIEGO

19. Person Product

20. We shape our tools and, thereafter,
our tools shape us.
JOHN CULKIN, 1976

21. WHAT WE CAN DO
Don’t generalize about
people.

22. WHAT WE CAN DO
Focus on designing for
activities.

23. To the human-centered design
community, the tool should be
invisible; it should not get in the
way. With activity-centered design,
the tool is the way.
“HUMAN-CENTERED DESIGN CONSIDERED HARMFUL”
DON NORMAN

24. Treats people as a means to an end.
Focuses on growth at all costs.
Uses empathy to exclude.
NEGATIVE AFFECTS OF HUMAN CENTERED DESIGN

26. We show, via a massive (N =
689,003) experiment on Facebook,
that emotional states can be
transferred to others via emotional
contagion, leading people to
experience the same emotions
without their awareness.
“EXPERIMENTAL EVIDENCE OF MASSIVE-SCALE EMOTIONAL CONTAGION THROUGH SOCIAL NETWORKS”
PNAS JUNE 17, 2014 111 (24) 8788-8790

27. OkCupid has on occasion played
around with removing text from
people's profiles, removing photos,
and even telling some users they were
an excellent match when in fact they
were only a 30 percent match
according to the company's systems.

28. Just to see what would happen.
“OKCUPID REVEALS IT’S BEEN LYING TO SOME OF ITS USERS. JUST TO SEE WHAT’LL HAPPEN.”
BRIAN FUNG, THE WASHINGTON POST

29. But guess what, everybody:
if you use the Internet, you’re
the subject of hundreds of
experiments at any given
time, on every site. That’s
how websites work.
CHRISTIAN RUDDER, OKCUPID COFOUNDER

30. They set this ridiculously
ambitious goal for
themselves. They want
people to spend one billion
hours a day on YouTube.
“LOUDER”, REPLY ALL PODCAST

31. People
TechnologyBusiness
Design

32. Designers, like businesses, have
become too focused on ROI
rather than the greater good, or
how things “should be.”
KHOI VINH, INTERACTION 18, LYON, FRANCE

33. People
TechnologyBusiness
Design

34. Capital markets cannot relate to
— or engage with — sources of
value outside our narrow
definition of ‘money’.
“TRANSFORMATION CAPITAL: A NEW INVESTMENT LOGIC FOR CATALYZING SYSTEMS CHANGE,”
DOMINIC HOFSTETTER

35. WHAT WE CAN DO
Always get consent
and be honest.

36. Appropriate additional safeguards
have been included in the study to
protect the rights and welfare of
human research subjects who are
likely to be vulnerable to coercion or
undue influence.
PURPOSE OF THE HUMAN RESEARCH PROTECTION OFFICE AND INSTITUTIONAL REVIEW BOARD, UNIVERSITY OF
PITTSBURGH

37. Recruit a diverse pool of participants.
Ask participants to opt-into a study. Never run
one anonymously.
Tell participants how you will use the results.
Be explicit.
Directly quote them when presenting your
results. Summaries open the door for your
biases to creep in.

38. WHAT WE CAN DO
Be transparent about how
people’s data is being used.

39. Treats people as a means to an end.
Focuses on growth at all costs.
Uses empathy to exclude.
NEGATIVE AFFECTS OF HUMAN CENTERED DESIGN

41. Passengers grew outraged
that pictures of their
essentially naked bodies
were revealed to an agent
in a separate room.
“TSA: WHAT YOU GET WHEN YOU SAY ‘SOMEONE SHOULD DO SOMETHING’”
MEGAN RUSSELL AND DAVID JOHN MAROTTA

42. Empathy is a pretty word for exclusion.
If you want to know how women
would use something you’re designing
get a woman on the team that’s
designing it.
A DESIGNER’S CODE OF ETHICS, MIKE MONTEIRO

44. 26%
computing
occupations
held by
women
3%
of these positions
held by African-
American women
2%
of these positions
held by Hispanic
women
WOMEN AND INFORMATION
TECHNOLOGY: BY THE
NUMBERS 2018
NATIONAL CENTER FOR
WOMEN IN INFORMATION
TECHNOLOGY
6%
of these positions
held by Asian
women

45. Diverse teams produce more
innovative solutions.
“GENDER DIVERSITY WITHIN R&D TEAMS: ITS IMPACT ON RADICALNESS
OF INNOVATION” INNOVATION: MANAGEMENT POLICY & PRACTICE JOURNAL, DEC 2014

46. Diverse companies are more
financially successful.
“WHY DIVERSITY MATTERS” MCKINSEY & COMPANY RESEARCH, JAN 2015

47. Diverse teams make better decisions.
“IS THE PAIN WORTH THE GAIN? THE ADVANTAGES AND LIABILITIES
OF AGREEING WITH SOCIALLY DISTINCT NEWCOMERS”
PERSONALITY AND SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY BULLETIN, DEC 2008

48. Discover Define Develop Deliver
DIVERGING CONVERGING DIVERGING CONVERGING

49. WHAT WE CAN DO
Stop saying: “He/she/they
are not a good culture fit.”

50. WHAT WE CAN DO
Design with, not for, people.

51. WHAT WE CAN DO
Build projects around motivated individuals. Give them the environment
and support they need, and trust them to get the job done.
The best architectures, requirements, and designs emerge from self-
organizing teams.
At regular intervals, the team reflects on how to become more effective,
then tunes and adjusts its behavior accordingly.

52. Thank you.
JOHN R. POWELL
DESIGN DIRECTOR
HYPERGIANT
AUSTIN, TX
POWELL.JOHNR@GMAIL.COM
HYPERGIANT.COM

53. LET’S TALK ABOUT IT
powell.johnr@gmail.com
linkedin.com/in/johnrpowell/
JOHN R. POWELL
DESIGN DIRECTOR
HYPERGIANT
AUSTIN, TX
POWELL.JOHNR@GMAIL.COM
HYPERGIANT.COM