Unconscious Biases That Get In The Way Of Inclusive Design
8 Nov 2022
Throughout the research and design processes, our unconscious biases are the greatest risk to delivering inclusive experiences. From who we include and exclude in our research to how we plan and conduct research, it’s crucial that we understand how our unacknowledged biases can perpetuate systems of exclusion.
As designers, we want to design optimal experiences for the diverse range of people a product will serve. To achieve this, we take steps in our research and design decisions to minimize the risk of alienating product-relevant social identities, including but not limited to disability, race/ethnicity, gender, skin color, age, sexual orientation, and language.
According to psychologists, we all have unconscious biases. So, designs are often biased, just like we are. This article is for anyone involved in the product design and development process — writers, researchers, designers, developers, testers, managers, and stakeholders. We’ll explore how our biases impact design outcomes and what we can do to design more inclusive experiences.
Once we recognize our unconscious biases, we can take steps to reduce their influence on our decision-making, both as individuals and as collective development and design teams. In this article, we will discuss six unconscious biases that commonly result in delivering user experiences that fall short of being inclusive.