Designing Independence

Transcript

Laura:

Ivanka; with the design when you're designing for open source, which point in the process does design come along?

Ivanka:

Is this on? When I arrived in the Ubuntu community, design was something that was done at the end. It was the colouring-in bit. We've made it; now can you make it pretty? So that was certainly one of the jobs we had to do was sort of start talking about getting people to understand that design, the what's a designer question is a brilliant question and one that we can discuss at length all the time, but I did just by giving people different titles start distinguishing between people who did brand design and visual design and interaction design, all those other things. Where we were most successful ultimately was when it got to doing Ubuntu on the phone after I'd been in the community for a little while, worked out how things…made some progress, earned some merit, we started with stories and for anyone doing Agile, that all sounds very sensible, but what we did was we started with three, for the demo that ultimately went to CES and NWC where they launched Ubuntu on a phone and tablet, is we had three very strong stories; this is what a user will be able to do when we have completed this story. And it meant that the person doing the wifi enablement understood where their bit fitted into the story and the person who was making the notifications pop-up understood where their bit fitted into the story, and it made all the communication much more easy. It meant that everybody knew their place; they could talk, and they understood that we weren't just colouring in and I think there's also this slight…and obviously I can talk a lot, so please interrupt me if I'm going on too long! There's also the opposite view which is that a designer must design to the nth degree before a thing can be made, and that is also bollocks and a waste of energy, because without the multi-disciplinary conversation, what you design will be nonsense.

Aral:

And it's an iterative process; design done right is an iterative process.

Ivanka:

It's a process. Totally.

Aral:

I mean, it leads development but then development informs the design. If you don't have that iteration you're not really doing design.

Ivanka:

But you need to set a clear direct, like this is what we're trying to do and why and for whom and all those things. That needs to be set out and agreed and then you can do all sorts of creative thinking and inventing new things, but you need to lay that out first.

Aral:

Ivanka; when you were at Canonical, since you have first hand knowledge of that, did you find that there was a culture of this or a lack of culture of this at the organisational level? Because that's what I find; if it's not coming from the top down, it's something that you struggle to push up there, but it never…I've never seen it work that way. So, how do we create the…I guess what we're doing is creating new organisations saying, you know what? That's going to be hard to fix, let's create a new thing where that is the case. But what was your…I mean, did you see that?

Ivanka:

So, I mean obviously Canonical and Ubuntu are engineering-led communities; there's no point pretending otherwise. They've evolved quite a lot for sure. I did give four and a half years of my life to that and I did achieve some things. Thank you! I still have nightmares! But there really has been progress. Staff retention is easier at Canonical from a designer point of view than it was four or five years ago. But it's very hard to change the fundamental DNA of an organisation. This is change management, and everybody knows that's hard.

Aral:

To be honest, if I thought that it was easier than actually making a whole phone, I'd be doing that. I think that's easier than changing that culture. Changing culture is next to impossible.

Ivanka:

Changing culture is a whole skill in of itself; it's a whole different area of study and it's hard, yes.

Lena:

I think what we're actually talking about is implementing values, defining values of organisations either which we want to build or which we actually already have, but the first one is a bit easier. Defining those values, agreeing on them and then working based on those values and this includes how design processes are going to work, how the cultural set-up is, which is very important and you then need to involve people who agree on those values and you also have to have them enforceable; it's comparable with a code of conduct. You have to create it before the event starts and then have everyone knowing that this is going to be enforced and then also have to act accordingly.

Aral:

You know, on that note we do have a code of conduct if you haven't seen the website, and it will be enforced! And if anyone has any concerns about anything, our volunteers in the red balloons…not in the red balloons, that would be kinda cool, but probably requires more of a budget! Please do tell them. And it is important because again, unless we create welcoming environments, we just cannot tackle these challenges. That's not an afterthought; that's not a nice to have, you know, that's a deal-breaker. Awesome! We can all go home now! Questions from the audience: I think Shareen has one in the front, could we get a microphone to Shareen please? There we go.

Shareen:

Thank you. Lena, right? Yes. Thank you so much about your talk; I had a great experience with Aral when it comes to diversity and I'm just wondering what actions do you really take or what actions do you suggest people to take, because within our small sphere here in Europe, of course there is some diversity we can accomplish, but there is even greater diversity outside, so I'm just wondering how do you make this tangible?

Lena:

This is a thing I could actually give a ninety minutes talk about! So I’ll try to…

Aral:

Well you've got about ten, fifteen if you want to take the whole time?

Lena:

No, I don't want to! I think the first and overall thing is awareness of this topic and then it's taking a look at the organisations you work in and work on, and trying to define what values you can achieve there and how you can reach diversity there, and it of course also starts with creating role models, making people visible, aiming to attract a diverse group of people to work on your project and be part of it. It goes over to education to trying to get people who are not privileged or less privileged into tech communities and organisations, so there's a broad field to do and it also is related with accessibility in many terms and is related with awareness of privilege and so the thing is, what I always recommend, is read about it, try to learn about it, talk to people about it who are working on diversity and there are plenty out there, and try to create networks with those people and see how you can make a change in the thing you're working on and the other thing is to define it as a core value of the thing you are doing and then also trying to be aware of it in the everyday work you are having.

Aral:

I mean, it sounds to me like almost what we're trying to say is, design is not about form, it's about content, and if you understand that in a wide sense, any time you see design as being about form, about being the aesthetic, about being the simulacra, about the surface, that’s where you're doing design wrong, and if you're doing design right, it's about the content.

Lena:

It's about the people finally, and it's about caring for the people in everything you do, no matter regarding ethics, accessibility or the design processes you define, and finally diversity.

Aral:

Cole, what do you think?

Cole:

No, it's very interesting…(inaudible)….No, it's very true. I personally, you know, back in the day when I first started getting into design it was all about pushing pixels and learning code, but the more I explored it, I mean it is a very humanistic practice.

Aral:

Who do we design for?

Cole:

Exactly. And again, because there's such a tight relationship between design and form, it is very easy to get confused if you haven't spent a lot of time really thinking about it, you know, is this commercial art or is this something more than that? So no, I totally agree and hearing so much about diversity and accessibility and processes is just wonderful; we need to hear more about it.

Aral:

And do you think sometimes there is a push-back against design because of that, because people erroneously think well, you are about the surface, you are about superficial things and we don't…yeah?

Cole:

Yeah, absolutely.

Aral:

Any…oh sorry…and then we'll take your question.

Ivanka:

One of the reasons we struggled entering the Ubuntu community is because a lot of the community don't believe that we cared about Ubuntu and free and open source software. You don't go and get a job like that unless you care because you can't; it's too hard. You have to have an intrinsic…some kind of…

Aral:

Unless you're a masochist!

Ivanka:

Unless you're completely nuts! But you have to believe in what you're doing because frankly, there are many days where you just think, fuck this, I'm off, but if you weren't brought into the vision, there was no way you could participate, but that was one of the hardest things to achieve.

Aral:

And I mean if there is one thing that I hope that you guys will take away, yes, we are making alternatives and new organisations, but there is huge value in working from within, whether it's in existing organisations or even closed organisations from working from within, and we need lots of different people to be doing lots of different things; you know, yes; I very much believe in what we're doing and we're putting an X on the map: that's important as well, but that does not diminish the value of what people are doing in existing organisations a lot of the time with far less reward and with far more angst, you know, part of what we're doing is in a way easier, even though it's not easy, at least we don't go through that angst necessarily.

Lena:

Every one of us will have to walk an extra mile anyway now. If we want to make a change, this won't work when we're just accepting and embracing the status quo, so we'll have to make an effort, we'll have to change our mindsets and have to approach things differently and this will also have to include changes in the way in which we work and work together on those things.

Laura:

I think it's very easy for people to expect us to put up and shut up with things as well. I think people will go, yes, this is boring, why are you talking about this again? Oh, so and so is going on about this independent technology again. So and so's going on about diversity again, accessibility…

Aral:

Am I so and so?

Laura:

It's like it's a person. But it's so easy for people to talk like that and just dismiss us so quickly, and we need to not be afraid of just keeping on going on about it. We're not being boring; we're being important, and that's the only way we're going to make a difference is if we keep drilling it into everybody.

Aral:

But in an accessible way as well; it's so important! No, I mean that though. I mean that, you know, because if it's so easy to dismiss: oh look, yeah that group that lives in their parents' cellars and only eats pizza and drinks…oh they're a fringe little crazy group, then we won't get through, and that's part of what we need to do. We need to be accessible in every sense of the word.

Laura:

And that's I had…when I said about when we're talking about our products as well, when if you're a speaker, if you're any kind of representative of your product or of an idea, you have to be accessible too; you have to come to people with the way that they think about things and tell them how it's important to them and how it will affect them, because people are pretty selfish and they want to know about things on their own terms as well.

Aral:

We have a couple of questions I think first of all back there, yes.

Question:

Hi.

Aral:

Wow, you did that segue. That was the best microphone segue ever so far, if we could just acknowledge that, that was great. Everyone should do that!

Question:

So I'm a free and open source software developer, My name is Orsi Alekis(?) I was quite interested in what Laura had to say about universal design and following on from there, what Lena had to say about diversity, so I was wondering whether the two can co-exist or there may be some contrasting between them under some circumstances, and in other case, are we talking about universal design practices or principles?

Aral:

Wow.

Laura:

Which first? I would say…

Aral:

You did that thing Richard Stallman doesn't like; just so you know!

Laura:

I don't know what you think Lena, but I would say that diversity and inclusive universal design are very much complementary things; I think when we have an organisation that is diverse, we are far better at understanding the greater needs of the diverse people that will be using our products. So I don't think that they at all conflict with each other.

Lena:

I'd say the contrary, because diversity includes accessibility and includes universal design. If you don't have all possible users in mind, which include people with the need for …define need for accessible software and accessible products, you can't go for diversity and you can't go for accessible design and universal design without keeping diversity in mind, so we actually talked yesterday and we found out that our talks fit very well together, and I think that's also on the higher level; these two topics embrace each other, definitely.

Aral:

Sorry, I would even take that a little further, as I do things sometimes, and say that when we think about design in general…I've totally lost my trail of thought…I'll just let you…you go with your question; I'll remember that! Too many prefacing. Too little sleep.

Question:

(inaudible)……so this would kind of block any kind of different ideas. My question ???

Aral:

As in, can we do that, or…

Question:

Kind of, yeah.

Aral:

Or should we? Because I don't think so. I'm sorry, I'm taking this one. Sorry, oh the repeat…the question is, can we have a set of universal design principles and correct me if I'm wrong, that we can adhere to and that's most of the work done there, right, in terms of design.

Question:

??? comfortable to have, you know, this set of universal principles…

Aral:

Right. I would say design is not comfortable. Design is about human beings; they are unpredictable, they are irrational; they're all the things that we hate, especially if we are engineers etc. But that's the bit that we can't deny; we can't just create check-boxes because we're creating these patterns that will work everywhere, because design is about specific instances and solving specific problems for specific audiences. So yes, they might be a good baseline to have, but the real problem that I see there is, then they become a religion, they become the check-boxes that we've ticked and so we must have done design right. Did anyone think about the people using it? No. We thought about the check-boxes and that's really problematic, you know, as far as I see it. Sorry, someone else?

Ivanka:

I don't think I need to add anything to this, but a thought that came to mind…a thought that came to mind was that often, universal design, accessibility, get lumped in with some idea of consistency or consistently just mediocre because that's the thing that works for everybody, and we have to go to this kind of, you know, boring line of well, we can't do anything interesting because…and the reality is that designing things for people means that actually when you start thinking about accessibility on its own, even without diversity, which I agree are a little difficult to divorce, you have to think really hard to get the design right.

Aral:

The thing that I was going to take further and then I forgot was basically that about diversity, I truly believe that you can only design…you can design the best for yourself. We have a lot of methods for research, etc, but if you're competing with someone who's designing for themselves, you're going to be at a disadvantage. So if we have an organisation where we have a diverse group of people designing for themselves, in a sense we have diverse design, which is the opposite of going and saying, we're going to do a lot of market research and research and methods to understand you so we can build something for you, that's kinda like saying, I ma studying you to understand you: why don't you design for yourself but make your organisation diverse enough that you are actually practising diverse design, then it's not this sort of imperialism; it's not a cultural imperialism. Sorry, that was what I was going to say and I forgot.

Lena:

All we've succeeded in so far in many places is creating solutions for highly privileged, highly educated people with very much access to technology, to broadband internet connection. This is the amount of people we already created solutions for, but the other people have been marginalised and we don't have solutions for them yet and they are the much broader population.

Aral:

And maybe we are not the right people to have those solutions; because you look at something like Firefox OS and we're saying, we have built an operating system for a very different audience of people and a very different part of the world, right? We have built the operating system for you guys, and then will we use it? Well probably not, it's not for our needs, but we built it for you and you should be happy with that. And I have a problem with that, because again, it is kind of like the white man saying, here's the fire; here, use the fire; fire's great. No? You didn't need that? OK. Well maybe you need something different. I've got two questions that we're going to take as well; cool, go.

Question:

OK, I'll be quick. I think this sort of designing for the one per cent idea sort of relates back to design as being art and flashy and kitsch, because you know, it's not sexy to design for diversity or for the people who really need it…

Aral:

We can make it sexy!

Question:

Exactly.

Aral:

Is sexy what we want?

Question:

Design is not…exactly…yeah, design I don't think…except maybe in very rare circumstances, should be about sexy; it should be about bettering the people we're serving, and we need to start differentiating between design and fashion and design as actual utilitarian, humanistic practices.

Aral:

So we have two questions; I think Brennan had…no, actually you had your hand up first, sorry, and then we'll go to Brennan. Yep, can we run …I'll run a mic. I'll do the mic running thing. This is awesome, this is what it feels like.

Question:

So…one of the threads and I don't know…I'm sure it’s not intentional; one of the things that I hear between the lines from what you're saying is that there's actual work to be done to get all these goals that we want to adhere. I want to turn this around and say they're a prerequisite for the success and they're a guarantee for the success, because if we do all that, we will be successful in the endeavours. Maybe the phone or other things that the indie community is going to do, so we shouldn't look at them as a chore and then OK, we're going the extra mile because we have to. We need this to get the success, the mainstream success that we want, so they are the guarantee repeated…the guarantee that we actually be successful.

Aral:

I couldn't agree more. I think Brennan had…and has a microphone. We are on the ball!

Brennan:

Hello. The idea of diversity versus universal accessibility, like one specific thing that I've dealt with very recently just popped into my mind, and it's like you know in a browser or your operating system you can right click, and you get a little menu and it has different things and Gmail, for instance, you right click and you get a Gmail specific menu, and it's different; it's an HTML generated right click menu, and I've had like two polarised opinions about that from two people whose opinions are very well founded and very important to me, and one said, never modify the default browser behaviour and alter that menu, and the other person said, please put this feature and I'm like…I don't know what to think, because I respect both of your opinions and I see the merits in both arguments, and actually the solution, what I think might be the best solution, just popped into my head sitting here, and it is well, what if the browser provided an API hook where you could as a web developer specify special items that get included in the natural operating system thing. But this highlights a different problem in the current tech eco-system, because how would I go about getting that implemented in Firefox or Chrome?

Aral:

And what happens also just popped into my head; what happens also if there's a malicious site and they go…we're going to put this standard looking item there that people think is part of their browser and they may trust more…I don't know…

Brennan:

Yeah, I mean there's a lot of angles…

Aral:

Yeah, sorry, someone take that?

Laura:

I think that this is what design is. It's solving these really hard problems; it's balancing these needs because of course there's going to be people with varying needs and needs to that do oppose each other, and then you do have that really hard decision to make of which do I prioritise? Which is important, which is going to serve more people better or the people that I want to serve better, and we do have to do that, but that's what design is, and it's really difficult and maybe not also when someone is demanding something of you, is it right that they're demanding it of you? Just because they're telling you, you should do that, does that mean that you should do that?

Aral:

Yeah, I mean that's where the vision really comes into play. That's what you filter all of these demands through and say, OK, you need this for what you're doing, but what is our vision for our product, and that's where again, if it's open…sorry: free, that's where someone who doesn't agree with you has the freedom to go and say, well actually I really need this and maybe my three friends who live down the street also need this. Maybe nobody else does, and it's awesome that they can add that but it's I think part of your job to say no, start from no and then make every yes earn its right to exist, like put every yes through a trial by fire based on your vision.

Brennan:

Right. What I'm more talking about is more in this case, perhaps the best solution is something that is outside the hands of the developer like me, and sure, I could go fork Chrome EM or Firefox, but then I've got a whole other set of problems getting people to actually use the app.

Aral:

Which is why it's…

Brennan:

It's the operating system or the environment or the platform is the gatekeeper to the solution, that creates a different class of problems that does make diverse opinion and usability and a designer who maybe is working in the right way to solve this incredibly challenging in my opinion.

Aral:

Which is why you need to have control over the whole system, you know, the more control you have over every component that goes into the end user experience, the more control you have over the end user experience, and by control I mean making it seamless for people, beautiful for people, and then of course if it's free, then you can layer those seams so that people can get at them and change them, but without that control, if you're in the browser level yeah, you don't have control on the level above that, even though that might affect what you're doing, and that's always an issue.

Lena:

But that's why when we're talking about diversity, we are also talking about skill diversity and talking about involving people with very different backgrounds, ideas and also skills and things they're actually working on into every process which we define, so that you get not only the developer but also the designer beforehand and a project manager and a manager of the entire organisation if necessary, to sit on those things and discuss them if necessary. Or to have values defined which avoid running into such situation beforehand.

Aral:

I think that's a great point to…well actually, Thomas had his hand up as well, so Thomas, one last question from you and then we're going to have to go to break.

Thomas:

Thanks. Well, first of all I'm a designer too as a background, so I empathise a lot with the things that you're sharing and I'm actually practising design within a big corporate and I will tell a bit more about that later. One thing that you've seemed to be touching upon is the two ways that we use the word design in English language. It's to describe the end product, the artefact; it's The Design, but we also use the same word to describe the process, how we design or to design and I think the topics that you've been touching upon, upon diversity and multi-disciplinary approach and even multi-cultural approach to setting up design teams, the influence a design team can have within an organisation starts to go beyond traditional capabilities of design. So what's your view on the new capabilities that we as designers need to develop in order to gain more influence, not only in big or larger organisations, but also as agencies or as start-ups.

Aral:

Well, right before Ivanka takes it, because I know she's going for it, this is exactly what I mean by design-led by building design-led organisations where the remit of design is not just a process for the product to create a product; it is everything about the organisation, from the business model down is design, because again, when we're talking about the browser, if something's affecting the user experience, it's a layer above the browser and the operating system, for example, you have no control, but you can take that above the stack. You can go into the organisation and if there's an organisational issue that affects the operating system for example, how it's structured, then you have no control over that, so we need to go as far up as we need to and that's where design begins, so that's holistic design. That's a design level organisation. Sorry; Ivanka. Go.

Ivanka:

I have an opinion on this. I think as designers, we need to use the skills we already have but think about…there's no but to think about this extended audience or this specific audience of stakeholders and the specific medium that we need to use to communicate with them. It is one of the things I find, because I've often managed design teams as well, so people come to me…I did this thing and I came up with this persona post and nobody's taking it very seriously; like well, you're a designer. Design a different way to communicate your idea that works for the audience that you're trying to communicate with, and fundamentally, I think that's what we need to do; just think about our reach more broadly and think about that audience.

Aral:

That's a beautiful note to end this panel on. Thank you. If you want to clap, you may!

(applause)