4 Ways to Encourage Diversity on a Creative Team
Let’s face it. Being one of few or the only Person of Color (POC) on a team sometimes can be frustrating. You may feel like you need to speak up on issues of diversity and inclusion when no one has. Particularly when working on creative teams where a lack of representation may quickly become visually distinct once your users hit your landing pages. Here are four quick ways you can encourage diversity and inclusion practices on your team.
Show diverse imagery
So you’re collaborating with your teammate, and you’re excited to check out their next iteration of the design. The thing is, when you check out their visuals, all of the images look like every other image on those dreadful cookie-cutter sites that make you cringe. As someone who’s able to have input early in the design process, now’s the time to speak up. While there’s no need to give your teammate a history lecture, a slight nudge could help. Try asking them to consider the demographics of your user base and ask if they feel this image is representative. Another tip is to mention other instances on-site with similar imagery. Maybe it’s time for a bit of variety.
If you’re the designer adding those images on-site or filling an image request, even better. Make sure that when you’re choosing stock photos, you’re not just going with the flow if that flow isn’t fairly representative of society. If you work with non-POC designers, you may find that your images may be the only splash of diversity on-site. And that’s okay because your gift as a designer of color isn’t just being a representation for upcoming designers of color, but to influence the images millions of users see on your site. And I guarantee you many of those users look like you. More importantly, when you have diverse imagery on-site, POC notice, they appreciate it, and their wallets follow. As heavy culture influencers, the far-reach of POC affects all consumers. It’s no coincidence that so many brands are working overtime to show diversity in their marketing campaigns.
So you may be saying, we don’t use photography. If you have a more playful website that uses illustrations, try to participate in feedback sessions on those illustrations. Does a fictional character need to represent a particular race or can they take on a different complexion? The yellow hue of the Simpsons characters shows that not only do non-conventional character complexions work, but viewers will often relate more to these characters because they don’t look like a conventional person. It sounds like a win-win for diversity.
Write inclusive language
The words used on your site are just as important, if not more important, as your images. When writing for a site, be it freelance or full time, you want to make sure that your language is representative of all users. Inclusive language acknowledges the diversity of your users by showing respect and sensitivity to their differences. When writing for your site, try to avoid language that may have implicit biases, unnecessarily gender, and use outdated normative descriptors. For example, when writing in the third person, switching your sentence to be plural instead of singular will allow you to use the gender-neutral “they” as your subject.
While injecting humor is a great way to add personality to your writing, be mindful of your language choices. Humor is subjective. What you may find amusing may be belittling, lewd or offensive to users of different backgrounds and cultures. Using reputable sources to verify language choices can help keep your writing in check.
Practice ADA compliance
Being mindful of the way differently-abled users may access your site is vital. In addition to being considerate of the needs of your users, so many sites have been sued over lack of ADA compliance, it should be a given. Even a multi-million dollar brand like Beyonce can be sued.
Visually-impaired users can range from those using screen readers to those with red-blue color-blindness. You’ll need to run a variety of tests to increase your likelihood of meeting their needs on your site. Check your site for screen-reader friendliness by downloading an open-source screen-reader and navigating through your site. This can be time-consuming, and if your job tasks don’t include accessibility or compliance work, you may not have the time for it. But, you can still help.
As a creative, the best way to avoid ADA compliance issues is to not create them in the first place. Follow ADA guidelines for color choices, font sizing and other basic principles of good design that also work well for inclusive design. Work with your developers to make sure images are properly tagged when you handoff your designs or during quality assurance testing. Run your designs through an accessibility checker like WAVE or ADAScan. And if you notice something isn’t right, follow the proper protocol within your team to make sure it gets updated.
Advocate for representative user personas
Representation matters. Emphasis on the “period.” Your target users must see themselves on your site. It doesn’t have to be imagery. Representation comes in many forms. Is your team designing with all users in mind? If you’re aware of your site demographics, your team may have developed user personas (if not, Medium has some great resources to get you started). Does your collection of user personas adequately represent all of your users across socio-economic status? It can be easy to write stereotypical user bios that have all of the right reasons to buy your product, but it’s also important to write personas reflective of those users in ZIP codes outside of your ideal customer. Of course, this isn’t to say that if your marketing strategy no longer serves this group nor desires to that you should still push this persona. But, if the data was pulled during your research phase, and the demographic is shown to be a significant part of your site revenue, these users should also be represented.
Be vocal if you feel a specific user demographic pulled from the data isn’t adequately represented or represented at all. These personas will shape the way your fellow and future designers, writers, developers, and business associates create for your site. Take advantage of the power of user personas to create empathy to design inclusive experiences.
Add these strategies to your arsenal
You’re off to a good start. While this list isn’t comprehensive, hopefully, it can help you feel more comfortable with ways you can still represent your community outside of your community. While as POC, it is not our duty to be the defender of all things diversity, only good can come from leaving the woodpile higher than you found it.
