By Alexandra Schmidt
176 pages, paperback, $32.99
Published by Rosenfeld Media
rosenfeldmedia.com

With every new technology, from printing press to social media, from automobiles to AI, there are benefits and there are harms. Typically, those who benefit are at the pinnacle of society—like carmakers—and those who are harmed tend to be at the bottom: think car buyers before seatbelts were mandated. The printing press is an opposite case, with those in power under threat—Britain’s libel laws come to mind. To remediate these harms requires deliberate interventions, usually by policymakers and government regulatory agencies. Deliberate Intervention covers the intersection where design, policy, new technology and harm meet.

UX designers, writers of algorithms and policymakers will find Deliberate Intervention likely to extend their appreciation of how seemingly neutral design flaws released into the world become harms. As YouTube and Facebook designers discovered, a perceived benefit—designing a recommendation algorithm that keeps users watching—can quickly become a harm, promoting increasingly angry, hate-filled, conspiracy-minded content that arguably harms not only individuals, but society and democracy itself.

So how can design reduce harm, and how can it be used to inform policy? According to author Alexandra Schmidt, “civic tech” is one promising answer. Instead of a public feedback loop measured in years, she suggests deploying the entire toolbox of user-centered design techniques early in the creation of policy. Ethnographic research, personas, journey mapping and iterative releases are some of the mechanisms Schmidt suggests. Baby steps, she admits, but ones that can productively move policy in the right direction. —Sam McMillan