Changes: List of technology design decisions that marginalize people

Revision as of 23:00, 6 November 2013

This is a list of technologies which in some way (perhaps unintentionally) marginalize some users based on gender, race, class, sexual orientation, disability, etc. It provides motivation for having a diverse group of people participate in creating technologies.

General issues

Much software has problems with accessibility, making it unusable for people with visual impairment or other disabilities.
A large amount of software is only available in English, and translated software often into only a few other languages.
Some software restricts text entry to, eg, the Latin character set.
Some software relies on artefacts of the Latin character set for key features (eg, relying on spaces between words; not all written languages segment words with a special character at all)
Much software is only available for comparitively recent (and thus expensive) hardware and/or platforms.
Use of most software assumes at least a moderate standard of literacy.
Developing software is even more likely to require knowledge of English or at least command of the Latin character set.
Software that uses icons instead of words may still often assume a great deal of cultural literacy, usually with dominant Western European-North American cultures and their symbolism. In any event, unless verbal equivalents are given, such designs are inaccessible.
Much software makes very restrictive assumptions about people's names, some common examples being that everyone has exactly two "important" parts to their name, that everyone's name is written in Latin characters, or that names do not contain "special characters" like hyphens. See for example Who is harmed by a "Real Names" policy? and Falsehoods Programmers Believe About Names.
Much software relies on United States-specific addressing information, such as requiring ZIP codes and selection of a US state of residence. (Even "postal code" which is sometimes used as a substitute, isn't universal. See Falsehoods programmers believe about addresses) Websites that only accept US credit cards or only ship to US addresses often do not make this plain before the customer has invested considerable energy in assembling a purchase.
Increasing amounts of software require either always-on or regularly-on Internet connections, which is either infeasible or enormously expensive in many parts of the world.
Increasing amounts of software assume that streaming tens, hundreds or even thousands of megabytes of data is both fast and so harmless that no sign of this needs to be shown to the user. In much of the world this is not true and even in some wealthy countries data is too expensive for this.
The terms of use for much software and many websites is based on the US legal system and requires things such as resolution of disputes in a US court.
Many pieces of hardware are designed for average sized men:
- Many computer keyboards are designed for people with larger hands, putting people with smaller hands (who are more likely to be women than men) at higher risk for repetitive strain injuries. Likewise, office chairs and desks are often designed for taller people.
- The size and shape of mobile phones presumes the user's hands are a certain size. Users with smaller hands will find it difficult or impossible to use the phone one-handed. On average women have smaller hands than men, and people from developing countries have smaller hands than those from wealthier ones. As mobile phones -- especially top-of-the-line phones -- grow larger with every new model, the problem continues to worsen. See: Dr Zeynep Tufekci, "It's a Man's Phone"

Specific examples

The HP MediaSmart webcam fails to track darker-skinned faces . HP says that It's "built on standard algorithms that measure the difference in intensity of contrast between the eyes and the upper cheek and nose."
One of the X11 , HTML , and CSS color names is "Indian Red".
The options for "relative" in the iOS address book do not include "cousin". This marginalizes cultures in which extended families retain close ties.
A large portion of website registration forms ask for the user's gender but only provide options "female" and "male".
- Some forms provide the third option "other", which many genderqueer people find just as marginalizing.
git doesn't allow retroactive name changes.
Facebook, and perhaps other social networking sites, don't allow users who are in open relationships to list themselves as "in a relationship" with more than one person.
Computer games with romance/sex plotlines or mechanics often have restrictions on relationships:
- no, or fewer, options for same-gender relationships
- not allowing consensual or publicly known relationships with more than one partner
A lot of indexing software and systems that use folksonomy tags rely on the space character to separate all words, keywords, or tags associated with a piece of writing. Since not all writing systems segment words, this doesn't support all written languages.
Increasing numbers of computer games and computer gaming systems have an authenticity check performed once a day or more with a central server, requiring that the player have an Internet connection that is reliable enough for a once-a-day phone home check. Some games sold for home systems even store crucial game data on central servers, meaning the game cannot be played at all without a reliable high-bandwidth connection.
All "cloud" services rely to some extent, often a large one, on their users having continual broadband-quality connectivity.
Most wiki software (including Mediawiki underlying both Wikipedia and this wiki) relies on Internet connectivity at the moment of editing.
The name of GIMP (GNU Image Manipulation Program) is a derogatory term for people with disabilities .
Some image editing software provides a filter for skin whitening. In at least one example (a GIMP plugin) , the filter is classified under a menu item called "Beautify".
Some body-tracking technologies make assumptions about body shape that don't apply to all bodies. For example, Kinect with XBox does not recognize people under 40 inches tall . Leap Motion devices distinguish between "tools" versus "fingers", where a tool is "thinner, straighter, and longer than a typical finger" .

@@ Line 11: / Line 11: @@
 *Much software makes very restrictive assumptions about people's names, some common examples being that everyone has exactly two "important" parts to their name, that everyone's name is written in Latin characters, or that names do not contain "special characters" like hyphens. See for example [[Who is harmed by a "Real Names" policy?]] and  [http://www.kalzumeus.com/2010/06/17/falsehoods-programmers-believe-about-names/ Falsehoods Programmers Believe About Names].
 *Much software relies on United States-specific addressing information, such as requiring ZIP codes and selection of a US state of residence. (Even "postal code" which is sometimes used as a substitute, isn't universal. See [http://www.mjt.me.uk/posts/falsehoods-programmers-believe-about-addresses/ Falsehoods programmers believe about addresses]) Websites that only accept US credit cards or only ship to US addresses often do not make this plain before the customer has invested considerable energy in assembling a purchase.
-*Many computer keyboards are designed for people with larger hands, putting people with smaller hands (who are more likely to be women than men) at higher risk for repetitive strain injuries. Likewise, office chairs and desks are often designed for taller people.
 *Increasing amounts of software require either always-on or regularly-on Internet connections, which is either infeasible or enormously expensive in many parts of the world.
 *Increasing amounts of software assume that streaming tens, hundreds or even thousands of megabytes of data is both fast and so harmless that no sign of this needs to be shown to the user. In much of the world this is not true and even in some wealthy countries data is too expensive for this.
 *The terms of use for much software and many websites is based on the US legal system and requires things such as resolution of disputes in a US court.
+*Many pieces of hardware are designed for average sized men:
-*The size and shape of mobile phones presumes the user's hands are a certain size.  Users with smaller hands will find it difficult or impossible to use the phone one-handed. On average women have smaller hands than men, and people from developing countries have smaller hands than those from wealthier ones.  As mobile phones -- especially top-of-the-line phones -- grow larger with every new model, the problem continues to worsen.  See: [https://medium.com/technology-and-society/a26c6bee1b69 Dr Zeynep Tufekci, "It's a Man's Phone"]
+**Many computer keyboards are designed for people with larger hands, putting people with smaller hands (who are more likely to be women than men) at higher risk for repetitive strain injuries. Likewise, office chairs and desks are often designed for taller people.
+**The size and shape of mobile phones presumes the user's hands are a certain size. Users with smaller hands will find it difficult or impossible to use the phone one-handed. On average women have smaller hands than men, and people from developing countries have smaller hands than those from wealthier ones. As mobile phones -- especially top-of-the-line phones -- grow larger with every new model, the problem continues to worsen. See: [https://medium.com/technology-and-society/a26c6bee1b69 Dr Zeynep Tufekci, "It's a Man's Phone"]
 ==Specific examples==