What every designer can learn from design research & UX for humanitarian & human rights technologies

Theme: Accessibility, ethics and inclusion

When we think about the future and progression of design, how do we think in a way that explicitly includes and centres the people, places and communities facing extremely difficult political and societal challenges and how technology and society operates differently across borders.

The talk summarises design approaches and research, UX design for humanitarian and human rights projects that prioritise privacy, security and freedom of speech to help designers approach difficult topics when designing for any domain or industry.

Content warning:

• Violence against women, protest, internet shutdowns, terrorism, natural disasters, colonisation, racism, education and social status prejudice, police trauma, device seizer, detainment.

Participant takeaways:

• Some accessible and practical tips for designers looking to make any software more accessible and safe for very high risk case users that don't compromise the goals of a software/company/org
• Relatable and actionable descriptions and insights into high risk users like citizen journalists and human rights activists and their threat models for design and technology
• Practical tips in performing ux research and studies outside of your own cultural contexts and doing 'cultural brokering' as a designer
• Descriptions of our persona non-grata or adversarial personas we use at Superbloom for threat modelling a technology and it's design in order to plan for bad actor usage.

This session:

• Does not have a session cap