Design Justice, Take 2: A Student Perspective
In the second iteration of the 1-credit Design Justice course from Ethics Lab, which ran for seven weeks this semester, students considered how societal norms and values are manifested in seemingly value-neutral products and systems.
“Even if, explicitly, you’re not seeing design justice frameworks everywhere, the concepts and the paradigms you learn in the course are a mode of thinking that is exportable to so many other contexts,” says Max Zhang (SFS ‘23), who took the class this semester.
“Design has to be intentional, and even though people think of design as a corner of their lives that isn’t always relevant, design is everywhere,” reflects Rachel Won (SFS ‘24). “All of the interfaces you use in your life were designed by somebody; they don’t just exist.”
“[T]he concepts and the paradigms you learn in the course are a mode of thinking that is exportable to so many other contexts.”
Design Justice is co-taught by Ethics Lab designers and professors Jonathan Healey and Sydney Luken, who used online whiteboarding tools like Miro to structure the class for a virtual learning environment. Using Miro, Healey and Luken designated spaces for collaborative work and set aside individual student “studio” spaces for sharing and workshopping ideas.
“I loved the class because it was so innovative,” says Won. “I feel like a lot of classes, especially online, are really made for the in-person environment. But it seemed like the online environment was a seamless place for this class to be held.”
For their first class exercise, students were asked to photograph an item in their daily lives and consider how its design might disadvantage certain groups.
“At first I couldn’t think of anything, but eventually I thought about my lacrosse goggles,” Won says. “Brands design their goggles for a specific face shape, generally for white features, and because I’m Asian, a lot of goggles don’t really fit right with my bone structure. It was something I’d learned to accept, but I realized it was something Asian girls shouldn’t have to accept.”
“There were activities where I had to look into my daily life, not just do readings, where I saw the lessons being reflected in a way that was relevant to me,” she says.
“There were activities where I had to look into my daily life, not just do readings, where I saw the lessons being reflected in a way that was relevant to me.”
Zhang was able to apply the lessons he learned in Design Justice to his other courses. As part of a project where he was advising a company on international expansion, he considered his decision making through the lens of design justice.
“I was thinking, if we do expansion into another country, from a physical standpoint, how does that fit into a context of justice and impact? In what ways might we experience blindness in wanting to be inclusive, and what groups might we be excluding in this process?”
Healey and Luken made an effort this semester to highlight examples of design justice as a practice, and not only as a framework for critique. In the final exercise, students developed “merit badges” for which they nominated people and projects that exemplify design justice ideals.
Says Luken, “We can get so caught up in thinking about what’s not working that we sometimes forget to celebrate what is. The merit badge exercises were a way for students to practice articulating their own understanding of design justice, while also calling attention to inspirational and instructive work.”
Design Justice will be taught again in the fall semester.