Rosenverse

Log in or create a free Rosenverse account to watch this video.

Log in Create free account

100s of community videos are available to free members. Conference talks are generally available to Gold members.

Creating More Bias-Proof Designs
Wednesday, January 22, 2025 • Rosenfeld Community
Share the love for this talk
Creating More Bias-Proof Designs
Speakers: Sandra Camacho
Link:

Summary

What's one thing that prevents our designs from truly serving and uplifting as many users as possible? Implicit bias. While design has the power to drive positive change in the world, it's much more likely to uphold oppressive systems (such as racism, ableism, sexism and classism). This leads to harmful and exclusionary user experiences that fail to deliver on design's promises of usability, delight, relevance and accessibility. In this session, Sandra explores how implicit bias shows up in our designs by examining real-world examples across various design disciplines, including graphic design, UX, service design and product design. She then reviews practical techniques you can apply to start to root out bias from your designs, including: Evaluating designs for patterns of implicit bias (such as racial bias, gender bias, language bias and beyond) Interrogating the root causes of these biases across the design process Addressing bias both preventively (before it happens) and reactively (after it happens)

Key Insights

  • Bias in design is often systemic and tied to societal power structures, not just individual unconscious tendencies.

  • Algorithmic bias in technology can reproduce harmful societal preferences, such as privileging lighter skin tones in image recognition.

  • Design defaults frequently center dominant identity groups, resulting in exclusion of marginalized users, like right-handed bias in classrooms or cisgender assumptions in signup flows.

  • Intersectionality is crucial to understanding how multiple social identities interact with bias and privilege in design outcomes.

  • Surface-level fixes do not address the root causes of bias; systemic cultural change within teams and organizations is needed.

  • Developing reflexivity—recognizing one’s own identity and power—in designers is key to surfacing implicit bias early in the process.

  • Accountability means owning responsibility for discriminatory design outcomes regardless of intent and closing the gap between intention and impact.

  • Tools and practices such as personas, user research, and testing often embed bias if not critically examined for inclusivity.

  • Bias exists on a spectrum between oppressive and liberatory design, not a simple binary of biased or unbiased.

  • Community building and ongoing collective learning play an important role in fostering inclusive and equitable design practices.

Notable Quotes

"If you’re in tech, you are in social change, whether you realize it or not."

"Bias is a particular tendency, feeling or opinion in favor or against something, usually without reason or evidence."

"The Twitter algorithm favored the person with lighter skin tone as the most important part of the photo."

"White supremacy is the belief system of the superiority of whiteness embedded in systems, including algorithms."

"Systemic bias means a tendency for procedures and practices within an institution that favors certain social groups over others."

"The world isn’t designed for left-handed people, but left-handedness doesn’t have the same power structure implications as race or gender."

"Designers need to reflect on who their default user is and how power influences what is prioritized."

"Changing a biased design isn’t just changing features—it requires changing the entire design process and culture."

"There is often a gap between intentions and impact in design, and accountability closes that gap."

"Bias shows up overtly and covertly; sometimes it’s socially accepted or unnoticed, but still causes harm."

Ask the Rosenbot
Nalini P. Kotamraju
An Organizational Story: Salesforce Lightning Design System
2016 • Enterprise UX 2016
Gold
Kate Towsey
ResearchOps AMA with Kate Towsey & Jake Burghardt
2025 • Advancing Research Community
Dave Malouf
The Past, Present, and Future of DesignOps: a 2-part DesignOps Community Call (Part 2)
2022 • DesignOps Community
Josh Clark
Sentient Design: New Design Patterns for New Experiences (3rd of 3 seminars)
2025 • Rosenfeld Community
Alexandra Schmidt
Enterprise UX Playbook
2022 • Enterprise Community
April Reagan
Look, Think, Act: The Futures-Smart Design Organization
2021 • DesignOps Summit 2021
Gold
Marc Majers
Interrupted UX - Add A Dose of Reality To Usability Testing
2022 • Advancing Research 2022
Gold
Meaghan Waters
Lack of Product Thinking will Doom Your Legacy Modernization
2021 • Design at Scale 2021
Gold
Dave Malouf
The Future of DesignOps
2024 • DesignOps Summit 2020
Gold
Louis Rosenfeld
Opening Remarks
2023 • DesignOps Summit 2023
Gold
Shawna Hein
Create a Cohesive Civic Design Practice Across Agency, Vendors, and Contracts
2022 • Civic Design 2022
Gold
Megan Blocker
Positioning insight: Structuring teams, roles and careers for a changing research landscape
2025 • Advancing Research 2025
Gold
Sarah Fathallah
A Typology of Participation in Participatory Research
2023 • Advancing Research 2023
Gold
Jamie Beck Alexander
How can you find your role in climate?
2024 • Climate UX Interest Group
Mark Templeton
Creating a Legacy: the ultimate experience
2017 • Enterprise Experience 2017
Gold
Joerg Beringer
Scaling User Research with AI: Continuous Discovery of User Needs in Minutes
2025 • Designing with AI 2025
Gold

More Videos

Marissa Cui

"You don’t need a lot of upfront data; we predict energy usage with AI from just a building’s address."

Marissa Cui Rachel He Michael Leggett Manos Saratsis

Climate Design Product Showcase

March 13, 2024

Ryan Rumsey

"Being on time and on budget with your first projects is one of the most powerful trust-building levers."

Ryan Rumsey

Business Influence Without Losing Your Soul

January 14, 2021

Aditi Ruiz

"Capturing quotes directly—even assumed ones—makes empathy mapping more specific."

Aditi Ruiz Christian Crumlish Farid Sabitov

A PM State of Mind: Empathy Mapping Your Product Manager, Pt. 1

December 6, 2022

Chris Moses

"I joined the design ops team about six months after it was created, and I'm not the head but part of its leadership."

Chris Moses

Stretching the Definition of DesignOps with Product Development

November 7, 2018

Joshua Graves

"You need to know your limits on how far you’re willing to exert influence and your energy investment."

Joshua Graves

We Need To Talk: Navigating Conversations with Your Boss (Part 1 of 3)

April 14, 2025

Steve Portigal

"Trust is built by showing you’re there to help make them succeed, not just push your agenda."

Steve Portigal Chris Chapo Kelly Goto Christian Rohrer

Discussion

May 13, 2015

Gillian Salerno-Rebic

"Accenture’s Growth OS is an internal platform powered by Vivo’s LLM used across the creative enterprise for AI-accelerated insights."

Gillian Salerno-Rebic Mark Micheli

Redefining Speed and Scale: How Accenture’s GrowthOS Uses AI-Simulated Insights to Reduce Risk and Accelerate Innovation

June 10, 2025

Margot Bloomstein

"Design won't save the world, but it may make it more worth saving."

Margot Bloomstein

Fostering Trust in Your Brand and Beyond

March 12, 2020

Megan Blocker

"We are doctors, not waiters — we combine data, context, and expertise to create meaningful insights."

Megan Blocker Marieke McCloskey Renee Reid

Positioning insight: Structuring teams, roles and careers for a changing research landscape

March 13, 2025