Social Justice in UX: Centering Marginalized Users

Abstract

The primary assumption of human-centered design is that humans should be the focus of design and decision making when creating technology and information products. However, when certain types of people are consistently centered, others are intentionally or unintentionally pushed to the margins or left out altogether. In this panel, the speakers discuss how centering overlooked, vulnerable, or marginalized audiences leads to different design considerations, methods, practices and resulting designs. Topics include issues of queering consent, humanitarian organizations and interventions, multilingual user experience, and women of color in design. The panel concludes with a discussion of the implications of centering marginalized audiences and a call for a reinvigorated conceptualization of ethics in UX.