A critical essay composed as part of the curriculum for the Deep Dive Design Justice course at TU Delft Faculty of Industrial Design Engineering.
I come from a country with unparalleled diversity — linguistically, culturally, and socio-economically, presenting both a canvas of opportunities and a terrain loaded with challenges in Human-Computer Interaction. Drawing inspiration from the critical discourse on userism, as illustrated by Gonzatto and Van Amstel’s research, I find myself dissecting the layers of this phenomenon within the Indian context.
The unspoken racial hierarchies, deeply rooted caste structures that shape destinies, gender disparities ingrained patriarchal norms, and other societal norms add layers to the complexities of identity in India. These legacies of centuries-old hierarchies affect educational opportunities, job prospects, and social mobility and the subtle nuances of injustice often go unnoticed. The individuals may struggle to recognize the stark contrast presented by equitable treatment when they have never experienced it themselves. Witnessing the absence of systemic discrimination in the Netherlands myself, I took a considerable adjustment period. Back in India, despite my literacy, I adopted the notion of ‘unfair treatment’ as an accepted norm.
This systemic unfair treatment permeates daily practices and manifests in the operation of various services in Human-Computer Interaction. As a designer, I wonder, when I never encountered ‘fair treatment,’ how could I have effectively understood and designed for a population entangled in myriad layers of complexity? Shaped by my own experiences, I might have inadvertently perpetuated biased systems, akin to asking a child about their work life when such a concept is still distant and unfamiliar to them.
The paper introduces the term “userism,” which refers to the ideological justification for the oppression of users, particularly those from historically oppressed social groups. India, with such unparalleled diversity, faces the most challenging aspect of the persistent digital divide with the variation in population and geography. On one end, there are urban centres with tech hubs that stand in contrast to rural landscapes where the hum of digital innovation is a distant echo. The consequence is a gaping disparity in access to education, employment opportunities, social mobility and access to technology.
The narrative of oppression emerges when some groups have limited access to advanced technologies. It’s akin to running on an uneven playing field. This scenario is often seen in the digital realm, leading to what can be termed “computer-mediated oppression.” For instance, in India, the user interfaces prevalent in the digital realm often gravitate towards English, leaving a significant portion of our population underserved. As a designer, I am compelled to question how technology can bridge rather than widen this gap. I was never urged to think about decolonial, racial and feminist issues in design until I was introduced to this course. Now when I contemplate the user experience, I am acutely aware of the disparities in access to digital devices and services in India. For users from lower-income groups, the digital realm might seem distant, and the odds of leveraging technology for empowerment become elusive.
The threads of user experience are woven with more challenges than promises. India’s digital payment initiatives, spearheaded by the government under banners like Aadhar, UPI, and Digital India, present a paradox. While these initiatives hold the promise of inclusion and empowerment, their implementation is riddled with challenges. With India surpassing a population of 1.43 billion people in 2023, only 38% of households in the country are digitally literate. There is a cybercrime every 39 seconds and it is usually faced by the digitally illiterate population. While we are reading this, there have been three cybercrimes already! The elevated occurrence of these cyber attacks is intensified because of the lack of user awareness, and lack of access to technology which further amplifies the existing socio-economic disparities in digital literacy.
I wonder, can design interventions break these barriers? Can design ensure that technology becomes a democratising force rather than a privilege?
The researchers through the dialectical-existential perspective understand potential issues in how designers perceive users. It seems plausible that such issues may exist, considering that designers, like users, are ordinary individuals who share similar backgrounds and life experiences. Designers, too, have encountered oppression and unjust treatment, raising questions about their inherent understanding of the user experience. As I mentioned earlier, how can designers authentically design for users if they haven’t fully empathized with or comprehended the challenges faced by users themselves?
In agreement with Bolas’s assertion that “we are not designing user interfaces, we are designing users”, the underlying theories of HCI emphasize the reciprocal relationship between humans and their tools, where humans shape their tools, and these tools, in turn, shape humans. While one could interpret this approach as treating users merely as objects and influencing human ontology, I advocate for a perspective where designers harness this power judiciously. I believe that Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) possesses the potential to actively contribute to behaviour and constructive change, thereby contributing to mitigating cases of user oppression.
To sum up, I align with the paper’s viewpoint advocating for the recognition of users not just as consumers but as a political category. It underscores the necessity for HCI to engage with critical theories like feminism, race theories, and decolonial theories, providing designers with a more holistic perspective. The designers can make more informed choices when armed with insights from these critical lenses. The paper rightly urges HCI research to break free from tradition, urging the exploration of innovative user roles that go beyond the usual passive stance. Imagining users not just as spectators but actively engaged participants in the computational development. This shift has the potential to breathe new life into human-computer interaction.
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