Human Centric Design

Human-Centered Approach to Optimizing Socio-Technical Systems for Equity

Problems that involve people and technology exist within a context and can be seen through multiple stakeholder points of view (POVs). The process to define the context and stakeholders is often not explicitly discussed in quantitative work, thus leading to solutions that do not match the original goals or serve the stakeholders initially promised. Ill-defined solutions can cause harm to people and in many examples, disproportionately harm many groups that already bear a large burden. Integrating equity into the definition, design, and evaluation of socio-technical systems is crucial for creating outcomes that work to dismantle the many injustices we see in the world today.

In DIVE, we are guided by this 8 Phase design cycle as a way to keep equity front and center in every step of our analyses. 
 

Reference: Sita’s dissertation, paper is forthcoming in 2022