CS547 Human-Computer Interaction Seminar   (Seminar on People, Computers, and Design)

Fridays 11:30am-12:30pm PT · Gates B3 · Open to the public
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Sara Wachter-Boettcher
Inclusive Design, Ethical Tech, and All of Us
April 26, 2019

We all want design to be a force for good—we want to make things welcoming, seamless, and maybe even fun to use. But without a process for ensuring our design decisions are also inclusive, equitable, and fair, our products can end up with all sorts of biases embedded in them. At best, these biases leave people out or let them down, like a "smart scale" that assumes everyone wants to lose weight, or a celebratory notification sent out to a grieving user. At worst, they can cause lasting harm: résumé-review algorithms trained to weed out women candidates, facial-recognition services that fail for people of color, "recommended content" features that put increasingly disturbing and violent content in front of kids.

In this talk, we'll look at the ways tech and design have gone wrong—and then talk about what needs to happen to prevent these problems in our own work, and to push tech companies to adopt a more ethical and inclusive way forward.

Sara Wachter-Boettcher is the principal of [Rare Union](http://www.rareunion.com/), a digital product and content strategy consultancy based in Philadelphia, and the co-host of Strong Feelings, a podcast about living your best feminist life at work. Her most recent book, *Technically Wrong: Sexist Apps, Biased Algorithms, and Other Threats of Toxic Tech* (W.W. Norton, 2017), was named one of the best tech books of the year by *Wired*, and one of the top business books of the year by *Fast Company*.

Sara is also the co-author, with Eric Meyer, of *Design for Real Life* (A Book Apart, 2016), a book about creating products and interfaces that are more inclusive and compassionate, and the author of *Content Everywhere* (Rosenfeld Media, 2012), a book about creating flexible, mobile-ready content.

Sara speaks about design, tech, and digital publishing at conferences around the world, and consults with startups, Fortune 100 companies, and academic institutions. Her work has been featured in*The Washington Post*, *Slate*, *The Guardian*, *Salon*, *McSweeney's*, and more. Find her on Twitter [@sara_ann_marie](https://twitter.com/sara_ann_marie) or at [sarawb.com](http://sarawb.com/).