This week, I tuned in to the live recording of “How Innovation Happens” presented at SXSW, the music, film and interactive festival in Austin, TX held annually. I was really drawn in by not only the discussion of the value of diversity in creating innovative and breakthrough advances, but also how biases can stagnate that process, so I decided to delve deeper.

When we work within a group of people different than ourselves, we have the opportunity to view things from a different perspective. Understanding how a different culture, generation, or gender sees a situation can be a pivotal point in the development of a design. Diversity has been shown to create a cognitive and social environment that is a positive indicator for innovation and a negative indicator for routine tasks. Drawing from different resources, we can get a broader idea of what the end result could be and how it will be interacted with. In addition, designing for diversity, considering multiple different uses and interactions, makes for a stronger design that can connect with more people.

So, why don’t we always successfully utilize diverse teams to make better products? While we like to believe that we’re open and unbiased, research shows that is unfortunately not the case. The hang up of working in diverse groups is these biases, both conscious and subconscious. According to studies almost everyone has measurable bias, almost no-one claims to have said bias, and surprisingly, people may even have biases against their own self-interest (i.e. a female programmer bias against women in technology). So, as we approach opportunity for innovation, it is invaluable that we encourage diversity and keep biases in mind—not in an effort to eradicate them, but to encourage an approach that could counteract our notions and empower everyone.

In regards to exhibit design, I think this goes to the value of not just ‘keeping the visitor in mind’ but keeping in the mind of the visitor—attempting to discard our preconceived notions of what the visitor is like or needs and thus approach the design, interactive, etc. with a mind of open exploration. Just how we’d hope any visitor would engage!

Curious to hear more? Check out this video on Life at Google.

 http://cacm.acm.org/magazines/2014/11/179827-the-data-on-diversity/fulltext

(https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/)

Banaji, M.R. and Greenwald, A.G. Blindspot: The Hidden Biases of Good People. Delacorte Press, 2013.