Sara Wachter-Boettcher

I read=Print: 2017; ISBN 9780393356045; W. W. Norton & Co.; 232 pgs.. (Audio: Audible.com; 10/10/2017; 5 hrs. 42 mins.. Film: No.)

SUMMARY / EVALUATION:
Sara discusses the practices of technology companies, particularly in the design of algorithms, that exclude exceptions, leaving minorities, women, and anyone with any exceptional circumstance unaddressed. She discusses forms that don’t take into account the fact that many people have multiple characters and spaces in their names—especially those with hyphenated names, reduce the population to a single race and/or leave some races out altogether; forms that demand information that is completely irrelevant to the task at hand; tech companies that value free speech to the extent that they leave it to the masses to self-regulate leading to bullying and hate campaigns against individuals. Some of the companies criticized are Google, Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, & Uber.
I found this book easier to read than the book I read a couple of months ago on this subject which had been published slightly after this one. I was able to comprehend sentences without having to parse them apart. This is another wake-up call that technology isn’t everything it appears to be. Hidden agendas lurk within apparently innocent designs, a lack of forethought or human intervention on the part of tech companies leads to rampant bullying and hate campaigns on individual members, etc.

AUTHOR:
Sara Wachter-Boettcher. According to Wikipedia, “Wachter-Boettcher is considered an expert on FemTech and the lack of diversity in technology in general. Her works have also received attention in academic literature on technology and algorithms.”

GENRE:
Non-Fiction, Computer Technology

SUBJECTS:
Internet; Google; Sociology; Bias; Reddit; Twitter; Facebook; Uber; Silicon Valley; Technology design

SAMPLE QUOTATION:
From Chapter 1:
“It really hit me at the end of 2014, when my friend, Eric Meyer—one of the web’s early programmers and bloggers—logged onto Facebook. It was Christmas Eve, and he expected the usual holiday photos and well-wishes from friends and families. Instead, Facebook showed him an ad for its new Year In Review feature.
Year In Review allowed Facebook users to create albums of their highlights from the year—top posts, photos from vacations, that sort of thing—and share them with their friends. But Eric wasn’t keen on reliving 2014. The year his daughter Rebecca died of aggressive brain cancer. She was six.
Facebook didn’t give him a choice. Instead, it created a sample Year In Review album for him, and posted it to his page to encourage him to share it. “Here’s what your year looked like!” the copy read. Below it was a picture of Rebecca—the most popular photo Eric had posted all year. And surrounding Rebecca’s smiling face and curly hair were illustrations, made by Facebook, of partiers dancing amid balloons and streamers.
He was gutted.”

RATING:
Too bad there are no halfies in these rating choices—a flaw Sara would doubtless point out were she looking over my shoulder. I’d like to go with 3 ½ stars, but I can’t. Normally I average downward, but this time I’ll go up. I wasn’t enthralled with this, but possibly because it felt like work reading it---because it was. I read it for “Professional Development”. These things are good to know about in the world of education and libraries.… (más)

An excellent introduction to compassionate design, full of tactics to add to your toolkit, but the lack of any real discussion around disabled people is uncomfortable. I felt like most examples focused around people having bad days due to injury, death, etc. -- the book should have had more examples from marginalized communities.

Also, the frequently used example of the period tracking app as being for women (when trans people are mentioned here and there in the book) feels like the authors could have benefitted from taking their own advice and challenging their own assumptions.… (más)

3.5 stars. I am 100% behind the issues laid out in the book...but my issues are with the construction and function of the book itself.

Who is the target audience? Tech/design industry folks or outsiders? The jargon and references were inconsistent enough times that it never sat well with me.

This felt at times like a lot of anecdotes strung loosely together, and I had to glance at the chapter title or flip back a few pages to remember what the theme was.

What is the major takeaway? The tech industry has flaws? Here is a list of socioculturally oriented flaws? Here are ways to address those flaws? And again, it depends on whether this book is intended for tech professionals, laypeople, etc.

This was an ambitious effort and an eye-opening read even for those of us familiar with these issues, but the execution needed polish to keep it cohesive.… (más)