Preparation for UI and UX Analysis.

IxD Process

As I read Nanjira Sambuli's op-ed on digital equity and Sasha Costanza-Chock's book on design justice, I agreed with the fundamental principles of inclusivity and representation, yet I could not help but want to push back against some of the assumptions, most egregiously the one about decelerating technological advancement in an effort to create space for ethical reflection. Personally, whereas ethics and inclusiveness are paramount, the concept of slowing down or stopping is not only unrealistic but potentially harmful to a globalized setting, whereby technology does not wait for policy.

Sambuli is right to criticise the "build it and they will come" ethos, too often, technologies are constructed without consideration of the communities for which they are intended. This results in technology that can be used on paper but not in reality, especially for people with disabilities or in the Global South. Similarly, Costanza-Chock's argument that design is never neutral but rather leans toward dominant perspectives speaks deeply to this. For instance, companies that design cookie management systems will obscure the reject button, prioritising data collection and profit over user autonomy and transparency. Both authors tease out how power dynamics and profit motives become embedded in our online existence, often to the detriment of marginalised users.

Where I disagree with Sambuli, however, is in the implication that we need to slow down the introduction of new technologies to get it all "right" ethically. In the globalized world of today, this is not realistic. Nations such as China are forging ahead with AI with virtually no ethical brakes. If other nations, such as the U.S., wait and ponder while others act, it creates an uneven playing field that will lead to a global imbalance of technological prowess and know-how. Technology does not halt at borders anymore; a loss of time by one nation is another country's gain. That being written, while I disagree with slowing the rate of technological progress as an overall strategy, I do think we must go out of our way to involve marginalized voices from the very beginning. The longer we wait, the more time and effort we'll spend trying to retrofit answers and undo wrongs that could have been prevented by designing inclusively in the first place.

Integration after the fact is normally harder, more costly, and less successful than constructing with everybody in mind in the first place. Eventually, what I believe both authors end up alluding to, whether intentionally or unintentionally and I could be misinterpreting their wording here, is that ethics, justice, and innovation must be thought of as holistic, as opposed to sequential. I don't think we need to slow down the rate of progress technologically, especially not when other countries are moving so rapidly forward, but I do believe that it's incredibly important to bring in those marginalized voices from an early stage. Waiting too long risks creating systems appallingly exclusionary, and the efforts involved in bringing in those who were excluded afterwards are all too often so much greater than simply designing with them in mind to begin with. Inclusion shouldn't be an afterthought; it needs to be built into the process from the beginning, since adding justice onto systems that were never designed to be just isn't just inefficient—it's frequently counterproductive