The privilege of working in technology
This was taken in 2011. I was sitting in a ministop waiting for my job interview. Mini stop then had little computer kiosks that you could pay 20 pesos (if I’m correct) to go online for a short ten minutes to message friends and check email messages.
A guy came in used that kiosk quickly and left with around 5 or so minutes left he left. A few seconds later a child walked in. Her clothes we’re old her face a little dirty from the street. She asked the cashier if she could get empty cardboard boxes they weren’t using, either to sell or possibly even to sleep on.
She looked at the bright little monitor of the kiosk. You can sense the curiosity in her as she reached for the mouse, trying to emulate what the man did before her. A few seconds later the staff came out gave her a few more cardboard boxes and sent her away.
I snapped this picture in 2011, and I thought this is why I work in tech. Because children need to learn how to use it. It’s been 9 years since and I took a look at this photo again and I see so much more. The world of tech promises so much but we don’t realize the things that prevent access to technology. So many times we think of all these technological solutions to education, finance and healthcare yet we never think do people have access. I come into UX conferences and I hear designers from the west think up of so many solutions to help the global south yet forget that for a big chunk of these people access to technology remains a far far dream. When a white male designer keeps pushing people to hustle and get your work out there and dream but not once think about the barriers and how much it kills people to jump those barriers to just even try 10% of what they say. When you hear of people saying we need to teach kids to code, or lower costs by making textbooks and tests digital they never think of the cost that adds to families of the poorest of the poor. Things like internet, devices (and it’s rotating yearly cost to update) all costs money that for these families would probably go towards food on the table. When I hear some CEO talk on stage about cellphone penetration in the Philippines and how that could help become an avenue this usually never comes with the thought that for a farmers family, their main problem is making sure they have galunggong on the table and gasoline on their lamps. But still we want to burden them with getting a smart device and an internet connection to make sure their children are able to stay competitive in school.
When we say ”empathize” and ”know your users to design for”, who do we include in that set of ”users” says a lot about who we are, what we care about and how privileged our view of empathy really is. The fact that we say empathize, says a lot about how privileged our industry is and how much bullshit is in that term. Being a UX designer means so much more than designing a users experience that would make us, privileged folks in the industry (whether it’s because you are male, straight, abled, or well off), there is so much more damage to be done with what you do not design for and who you do not design for. There is so much responsibility on your hands from what you make, what you plan, what you teach, what you post and what you advocate.
A few months ago, I gave a talk on how privilege impacts empathy and how we design specially for people and as people who live in the global south. A few weeks later I heard feedback about how “social justice warrior-esqe” my talk was. What people don’t realise is how the technology we design today changes the way people access basic human rights, human rights that with irresponsible technology, become more and more a privilege than a right. When asked about why we care so much about designing for the blind, the deaf, transgender folk, women when they make so little of what makes us money we have to understand that it costs us so less to add an “mx”, a “they”, an alt text to image, just so someone could access basic necessities they need. Yes it’s political, guess what, technology is political.
When I snapped this photo in 2011, all I thought was ”I wish every child knew how to use that thing”. I didn’t realize the layers of privilege and marginalization that one image said about the industry I would end up giving my life to. I look back on this image now and realize how much this photo, set the tone for my career.
