Teaching inclusion using awareness raising techniques was thought to be the way to go. And yes it did raise some awareness, but it was rarely translated to their work in real life. This is partly because it is taught as a sideline and not integral to the course from beginning to end. Researchers in the US wondered if going beyond teaching awareness would improve matters.
The research questions were: Did students who learned inclusive design act to make inclusive software? How did inclusivity manifest in student projects, if at all?
The bottom line to this research is that the ways in which inclusion appeared in projects was higher and bias was reduced. There were fewer reports of inclusivity bugs and higher inclusivity ratings. So going beyond teaching awareness worked for this group.
Although this project was based on a computing science program, the implications are positive for other design disciplines. Teaching inclusive design across the curriculum can impact students beyond heightening awareness. It encourages them to act upon this new understanding by designing technology that serves a wider spectrum of society.
The title of the article is Beyond “Awareness”: If We Teach Inclusive Design, Will Students Act On it?. It includes examples of the students’ work.
From the abstract
Motivation: Many university computer science (CS) programs have begun teaching various types of CS-related societal issues. They use approaches such as ethics, Responsible CS, inclusive design, and more. Although these programs have been able to teach awareness, students often fail to act upon this awareness. To address this problem, University X’s CS program tried an unusual approach. That is, integrating hands-on inclusive design skills in small ways across all four years of the CS major. But did it work? That is, did the students who experienced this change actually build more inclusive technology than students who did not experience it?
Objectives: This paper aims to answer this through addressing two research questions. (RQ1): Did students who learned inclusive design across the curriculum act to create more inclusive software? (RQ2): How did inclusivity (or lack thereof) manifest in students’ projects?
Method: To investigate these RQs, we conducted a case study of 22 term-long CS projects built by 22 teams consisting of a total of 92 3rd- and 4th-year CS students. Half of the student teams had experienced courses that had integrated inclusive design and the other half had not. The inclusive design elements University X taught were those of the GenderMag inclusive design method. So evaluating the students’ term-long projects was done by GenderMag experts—industry-experienced UX and Software professionals with real-world GenderMag experience.
Results: The inclusiveness of students’ projects was higher Post-GenderMag, with fewer reports of inclusivity bugs and higher inclusivity ratings. Experts’ evaluations also revealed the ways in which bias (e.g. bias against risk-averse users) and inclusion (e.g. inclusion of users with diverse information processing styles) appeared in students’ projects.