Purpose

We have spent the semester reading, talking, and thinking about how technology can have unintended consquences and disparate impacts on marginalized communities. As we introduce new ways of communicating, engaging, learning, and building, we must be cognizant of the potential impacts of techological systems on human lives and behavior. Our class up to this point has been primarily reactive - looking at the impacts of digital systems after they’ve gone wrong and produced harm. Now you get a chance to provide feedback on the development of a design, to think through and identify potential harms before the system is implemented.

Task

You will each be responsible for providing thoughtful feedback on four teams designs for STS 4500. Guiding questions are provided below but may not work for every team - get creative! We’d like to see at least two paragraphs worth of text per team but feel free to organize your thoughts however makes sense to you - bulleted lists, tables, maps, etc.

Here is a spreadsheet with each student in the class and your assigned teams to critique. The folder of submitted assignments is here.

Please feel free to work with other students assigned to the same teams (or different teams!) on your feedback - the best ideas often come from talking and bouncing ideas off each other.

Due before class on November 11th by email to Charlotte (ccm9yd@virginia.edu). Email either of us if you have any questions or want feedback or advice!

Guiding Questions

• Who will this design work well for? Is there anyone this design will not work well for? Could the design be modified in any way to prevent harm to those who might not fit well into the system?
• Could the design/system be abused in any way by malicious actors? How might the designers consider ways to prevent abuse?
• Who should be building, owning, and governing the systems they are proposing?
• What are effective ways of encouraging participation in governance? Many teams indicate this is important but don’t have a clear idea of how to design interventions, spaces, platforms or the like.
• For many projects, are they effective in describing the security, privacy, and power of data gathering systems as their design proposes?
• Are there underappreciated power inequities that aren’t being documented?
• Are they providing sufficient clarity in WHO is the target of their intervention and WHAT are the specific elements of that intervention?