It is crucial to continuously question the established practices, understandings, and assumptions that underlie UX. As the UX field continues to grow and increase its impact on peoples lives we must critically examine who is driving the conversations happening within the field, who is being excluded, what forms of knowledge are being deemed legitimate or illegitimate and why, how UX practices may harm people or impact human rights, and how prejudice and discrimination might be imbedded in the structures and systems that UX operates within and creates.
This list will never be done because this work will never be done. Please feel free to suggest and resources.
- DesignJustice - LinkedIn & Twitter Thread
- Erika Hall on flaws with design thinking
- Good resources in the comments, including link to the paper Practicing Without a License: Design Research as Psychotherapy
The core flaw with design thinking as a framework for humane value creation is that it completely neglects financialization and other economic realities that render theoretically empathetic approaches useless, or worse, actual tools of exploitation. It's extremely naive to assume that shareholder value and those values human-centered design purports to promote—such as truthfulness, respect, health, care, and sustainability—are in alignment. Sometimes they are, but if you begin by considering they might not be, you have a hope of real transformation. Only by starting with skepticism, awareness of historical context, and deeper thinking about complex systems, can we use design to do more than dress up toxic business culture.
- Indigenous Knowledge and Respectful Design: An Evidence-Based Approach by Norman W. Sheehan
- A Respectful Design Framework. Incorporating indigenous knowledge in the design process by Lizette Reitsmaa, Ann Lightb, Tariq Zamanc, and Paul Rodgersd
