Design and Diversity?

This pictorial engages with the concept of 'diversity' as it has been taken up in the current technology industry by companies such as Google, Facebook, and Twitter. Drawing on methods of design fiction, we use a visual parody of a fictional social media corporation to explore possible consequences of diversity efforts-both within industrial workplace settings and the platforms they produce. By outwardly foregrounding diversity through explicitly absurd presentations, our investigation uses humor and farce to draw attention to how such efforts further entrench the very forms of institutional racism, ableism, and sexism they are meant to disrupt; for example, by creating additional work for the people they are designed to include. We offer these visual explorations not to promote or discourage diversity efforts, but to help design researchers imagine what such efforts become when labor and unintended consequences go unaccounted.