Woman-Centred Design (original) (raw)

Woman-Centered Design through Humanity, Activism, and Inclusion

ACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction (TOCHI), 2020

Women account for over half of the global population, however, continue to be subject to systematic and 4 systemic disadvantage, particularly in terms of access to health and education. At every intersection, where 5 systemic inequality accounts for greater loss of life or limitations on full and healthy living, women are 6 more greatly impacted by those inequalities. The design of technologies is no different, the very definition of 7 technology is historically cast in terms of male activities, and advancements in the field are critical to improve 8 women’s quality of life. This article views HCI, a relatively new field, as well positioned to act critically in 9 the ways that technology serve, refigure, and redefine women’s bodies. Indeed, the female body remains 10 a contested topic, a restriction to the development of women’s health. On one hand, the field of women’s 11 health has attended to the medicalization of the body and therefore is to be understood through medical 12 language and knowledge. On the other hand, the framing of issues associated with women’s health and 13 people’s experiences of and within such system(s) remain problematic for many. This is visible today in, e.g., 14 socio-cultural practices in disparate geographies or medical devices within a clinic or the home. Moreover, the 15 biological body is part of a great unmentionable, i.e., the perils of essentialism. We contend that it is necessary, 16 pragmatically and ethically, for HCI to turn its attention toward a woman-centered design approach. While 17 previous research has argued for the dangers of gender-demarcated design work, we advance that designing 18 for and with women should not be regarded as ghettoizing, but instead as critical to improving women’s 19 experiences in bodily transactions, choices, rights, and access to and in health and care. In this article, we 20 consider how and why designing with and for woman matters. We use our design-led research as a way to 21 speak to and illustrate alternatives to designing for and with women within HCI.

Towards the exploration of Gender awareness in Human-centred design

Conference Proceedings of the Academy for Design Innovation Management

The primary aim of the human-centred design (HCD) approach is to identify the user needs. However, we argue that there is a lack of understanding of, and even awareness of, gender in HCD. This approach sees gender as static and stable regarding male or female such that the implication of principles in products, systems or services appeals to one gender or another linking gender differences, and stereotypes. To illustrate this, the investigation was conducted in the context of fostering sun protection behaviour in young men. Participatory design sessions were deployed to investigate the role of gender in the HCD and how it can be used to foster sun protection behaviour. We have concluded with the development of a novel gender aware HCD approach which opens avenues for design research and practice for increasing emphasis on the influence of the designer’s own gender and their gendered perceptions in their designs.

Bridging gender and human-centered design: a design verification study

2020

This article highlights the importance of adding gender awareness in human-centered design. Aspects of both paradigms are presented, and a lack of understanding of gender in the human-centered design approach was identified. Human-centered design sees gender as static and stable regarding male or female such that the implication of principles in products, systems or services appeals to one gender or another linking gender differences, and stereotypes. Evidence is provided through a design verification study, conducted in the context of fostering sun protection behavior in young men age 18 to 24. The results verify gender-aware sun protection interventions for young men. It also shows the inclusion of gender has great potential to bridge the gap between the world of designers and users. It also presents a discussion of the analytical procedures and the findings which emerged in this investigation led to the verification of design recommendations for sun protection interventions. Evid...

Editorial: Design, Research and Feminism(s)

Proceedings of the Design Research Society Conference DRS (Limerick, Jun), 2018

As design research matures and interacts more extensively with other academic disciplines, design research communities are engaging more profoundly and reflexively with the nature of research itself and the particular “situated knowledges” (Haraway) of design and the design researcher. Criticality, in design research today, involves interrogation of the theories and methods through which we do research. While early varieties of ‘criticality’ in design research drew largely from Frankfurt School critical theories, feminist theories are increasingly prevalent as a critical modality in design research by attending to issues such as power, positionality, embodiment, relationality, materiality, territoriality and temporality. The agency of critical approaches has been of particular concern in contemporary (feminist) critical approaches. Feminist theories assert that things can be different and can extend beyond analytic modalities into practice-based, interventionist and activist modalities to propose, materialize and experience how things may become “otherwise” (Petrescu; Schalk et al; Forlano et al). This opens up further dimensions among design and (feminist) critical theories. For example, exploring how things may become “otherwise” as an approach to design as a “worldmaking” practice may involve (non-) human perspectives on socio-ecological challenges or design work as “making-with” to “stay with trouble” rather than solutions (Haraway; Forlano et al). With this, our DRS’18 track on the theme ‘Design, Research and Feminism(s)’ invited contributions exploring notions of criticality and, or, feminism in design research.