Redesigning my UX research practice: an equity-based lens
I work at a liberal arts college and I’m the only person on campus with “UX” in my job title. Students across departments have sought me out for project consultations, career discussions, and general brainstorming about UX research and design possibilities.
I love these meetings!
As I’ve shared my experience and the excitement I have for the field, however, I’ve been deeply troubled to see UX processes implicated in racist, sexist, ableist, and otherwise oppressive systems and designs.
This summer I’ve been questioning my own research practice, to identify areas where I’ve fallen short and to redesign my approach.
First, full credit to BIPOC and women-led organizations such as Equity Meets Design, Creative Reaction Lab, and the National Equity Project. They are providing essential frameworks and practices to move towards equity-based and anti-racist design.
I’m also learning from experts like Alba Villamil and Vivianne Castillo, who are leading the way with important work on privilege in UX and guides for ethical research practices.
I highly encourage engaging with all of them, as there is too much nuance and depth in their work for me to possibly reflect it all here.
Some of these research elements and practices may be familiar to you. Some of them you may not have the power to change right now. I’m writing this as an invitation to reflect, while recognizing that we’re all in different places.
![Multiple overlapping ovals of different colors in an expanded Venn diagram](https://miro.medium.com/v2/resize:fit:700/1*KH9iSJNL4pTsg7zLk17d2w.png)
Acknowledging identities and biases
I’m a white cisgender heterosexual woman with some chronic pain conditions. Navigating my biases and the power dynamics with privileged identities first requires making them explicit and practicing self-awareness. It helps me stay humble about the things I don’t know, so that I am more likely to recognize and challenge my own assumptions.
It’s important for me to consider how my identities and/or power are impacting a process or relationship. I want to be mindful of tensions and gaps, and remain critical of my own ability to fully represent — versus simply overwriting — someone else’s experience.
When we don’t acknowledge how identities and power operate in society, our research and design will reproduce the oppressive structures, assumptions, and practices already in place.
I’m making space in the research process to acknowledge and reflect, not just at the start but throughout the process.
Recruitment and user groups
Students are busy people, and it can be challenging to convince them to carve out time to participate in a UX study — especially when you have a limited (or nonexistent) budget.
Oftentimes, UXers in academia (myself included) use a variation on intercept surveys, setting up a table with snacks and encouraging students to stop by for a short engagement. The goal is to get insights quickly with a low barrier for participants.
![Light cafe space with multiple young people at tables or standing together](https://miro.medium.com/v2/resize:fit:700/1*3k3jZXflLXzmpldTBrW9lA.jpeg)
This approach is not truly “random,” but it’s easy to fall into the trap of generalizing based on these engagements. Further, if you’re not specifically looking for people on the margins of your current design, you likely won’t find them this way. You might conclude that the system is working well enough for “most folks.”
Even when we’d be more specific about our user groups, we were often framing them in terms of system usage and experience (ex: novices and experts), but ignoring important questions of impact and power.
I’ve shifted my research strategy to engage more explicitly with these questions, linking my research focus to these questions: “Who is being most impacted by our systems? Who is furthest from power in our process?” This focus determines my recruitment strategy. I want us to explore what needs to happen to our research and design if we started at the margins.
![Close up view of chain link fence with a hole in it, showing a blurry field in the background](https://miro.medium.com/v2/resize:fit:700/1*d7N7L3DPkEWjyuwwgfNJdg.jpeg)
This also means examining my research engagement setups for barriers and exclusionary practices (that may be initially invisible to me) and being transparent about every step of the process, so participants know exactly what’s going to happen and how.
Considering the problem scope
When I entered UX in libraries, there was a lot of emphasis on “quick wins” and agile projects for staying responsive to user needs. In order to turn things around quickly, I’d pursue a narrow scope for projects. The “problem” was often confined to a segment of a process or single interface.
I quickly became uneasy with this approach — it felt like I was missing something.
![View from inside a dark pipe to a sunny field outside](https://miro.medium.com/v2/resize:fit:500/1*ON0gh87ZdFI9eoidQEF1qQ.jpeg)
When I began engaging with more exploratory qualitative research projects, I realized that I was missing a lot. With a spotlight only on user-interacts-with-system, I wasn’t seeing whole people in relation to context (or each other), and this affected my entire understanding of the problem itself, let alone potential solutions.
I’m not saying that you can’t make improvements with a narrow scope. However, your understanding of problems and people will be shallower.
By limiting things to snippets of interactions and ignoring context, you can reinforce a status quo understanding that embeds assumptions and even implicitly blames people for their problems.
![Grumpy cat meme with text, “doesn’t understand context” on top, and “fails to see inequity in systems” on bottom](https://miro.medium.com/v2/resize:fit:400/1*ZLE3Ijhqtcv43-TDQUbDbA.jpeg)
Exploratory, qualitative research can provide a strong foundation for deeper understandings. While it’s more time and labor intensive, the insights from these studies are more powerful and have greater longevity than those from more shallow, interface-or-service focused studies.
I want my research program to have a good balance between these two, allowing us to respond to immediate needs without sacrificing nuance and context in our approach.
Integrating historical awareness
One of the questions I’ll ask at the start of a project is, “What do we already know — or think we know — and how do we know it?” This helps me get a sense of the team’s current state of engagement with users, as well as where there might be gaps.
I’ll be adding another question to my kickoffs: “What is the history of this system/process/service, and who has been involved in it?”
Institutions have histories and biases, and these become embedded in our processes and services. If we don’t take the time to uncover these, we risk replicating exclusionary practices out of habit.
![Cookie dough rolled flat and cookie cutter duplicating person cookies with two arms and legs](https://miro.medium.com/v2/resize:fit:320/1*YDdvFcaAzQnIcygXbW55BA.jpeg)
It’s also important to make the hidden power dynamics explicit, so we can see how we can shift these. Does this (legacy) service design better support white, cisgender, heterosexual, temporarily able-bodied, or other privileged identities? Does it account for the needs of staff as well as students and faculty? Why or why not?
As colleges and companies announce commitments to diversity, equity, and inclusion, it’s all too tempting to jump into new initiatives without first considering the existing infrastructure and its histories.
Rejecting extractive research
When we invite people to contribute their time and expertise in UX research, I want to constantly be asking myself and others, “Who’s benefiting from this process, and how?”
UX has been criticized for adopting an extractive approach, in which researchers & designers define the problem(s) and questions, extract information from participants, and then create designs or systems that prioritize benefits to the institution and/or cause harm to participant communities.
![Silhouette of oil pump rig with the sun on the horizon behind it](https://miro.medium.com/v2/resize:fit:700/1*Wbvj-p8svS1QkKaMJq5dqA.jpeg)
A relationship-based approach to UX research requires looking at the power dynamics inherent in your process and working to share power with participant communities.
I’m thinking about how I can build accountability in my process by asking myself these questions:
- In what ways can I ensure that my process empowers participants to be the experts?
- What opportunities are there for co-creation?
- What mechanisms are in place to stay accountable to communities for how the process happens and what the outcomes are?
- Have I considered whether my research may be re-traumatizing or sensitive for participants?
Slowing. Down.
Some of this happens by necessity — as you involve more people and share power, you cannot move as fast. But it’s also just part of making space for reflecting and adjusting, instead of going by your defaults.
When I get anxious about not moving quickly enough, I remind myself that it’s the process that really matters here.
Building trust in relationships, sharing power, and being transparent and explicit are all values that cannot be rushed. Pushing back against urgency culture means continually asking “Do we really need to move at this pace? What are we missing if we do?”
Continually learning
I’m still working through this, and will definitely make mistakes. I’ll keep learning and adjusting as my practice develops. Engaging with equity-based design will undoubtedly keep challenging me to do better, because this work is never truly done.
I hope to be able to share this with the next students who walk into my office and want to talk about UX — so we can really explore all of the possibilities out there for them.