Diversity in Tech
Project: Infographic poster on the lack of diversity in tech
Elements: Visual Design | Research | Illustrator
Where: Parsons School of Design - Digital and Graphic Design Certificate
Summary
The lack of diversity in tech is a major problem. This project is an infographic style poster to encourage hiring managers to hire more diversely.
The Process
Research
Sketches
Roughs
Final Piece
The Final Design
The Process
Research
To start some numbers. In 2014 The US Population was:
51% Female
64% white
4% Asian
16% Latino
12% Black
1% Multi, and
3% other.
This demographic breakdown is far from being reflected in tech. Not only do the demographics of tech not reflect the demographics of the population, tech is worse than private industry as a whole. In 2014, the high-tech sector employed a larger share of whites (68.5% tech vs. 63.5% private sector), Asian Americans (14% tech vs. 5.8% private sector) and men (64% tech vs. 52% private sector). It also employed a smaller share of African Americans (7.4% tech vs. 14.4% private sector), Hispanics (8% tech vs. 13.9% private sector), and women (36% tech vs. 48% private sector).
Further, women make up less than 20% of computer science graduates, which has actually gone down from its all time high of 35% in 1985. And the higher up the corporate structure the worse it gets. When compared to other industries tech had the lowest representation of women on boards, with just over a quarter (28.5%) of companies surveyed still having zero women on their boards in 2017 and only 18% having three or more women.
The lack of diversity in tech can produce some pretty horrible consequences, especially with the current proliferation of AI. Ranging from early voice recognition technology not recognizing female voices, to the fact that according to a recent study from the Georgia Institute of Technology, darker skinned pedestrians are more likely to get hit by self-driving cars!
Further, diversity is good for business! Multiple studies have shown that companies with more diverse boards make more money than their non-diverse counterparts. While other studies have shown that diverse teams are more creative because diversity limits the effect of group think.
Sketching
Sketch 1 : It's a Pipeline Problem!
Because so few women are studying computer science, there are not enough qualified women to go around. Companies will often refer to this as a pipeline problem. However, this is an easy excuse and only looks at part of the picture. Not only are there fewer women than men entering tech, women are also more than twice as likely as men to quit the tech industry (41% vs 17%). An extensive study found that women are treated unfairly; underpaid, less likely to be fast-tracked than their male colleagues, and unable to advance.
So, I have illustrated the reality of the "pipeline problem" with a nod to the 90s cult video game "Lemmings". We see that men and women enter the pipeline in equal numbers, but the women get squashed and fall down holes while the men build stairs for each other.
Sketch 2 - Why do women leave tech?
Continuing on a theme, this piece is about the microaggressions that make up some of the negative work environment for women. We have seen many high-profile cases of not-so-micro-aggressions, but I wanted to focus on these as these are the day to day life of most women in tech, and it wears us down. I have illustrated this with the concept of "Death by 1000 Paper Cuts". A woman is shown, covered in paper cuts and surrounded by the many horrible things men say and do on a daily basis to cause these paper cuts.
Sketch 3: We don't want to have to lower the bar
40% of companies are facing a skills shortage in the tech sector, and this is only going to get worse. And yet a common refrain from companies that are critiqued for a lack of diverse hiring is that they don't want to lower the bar. This implies that minorities are less skilled than the straight white male. While straight white men tend to have more of the qualifications from the right colleges that tech companies look for, this doesn't mean that they are actually any better at the job.
Straight white men have a huge advantage because the world is built for them, they are implicitly and explicitly seen as better, so they don't have to work as hard to get the same jobs. I have illustrated this by having a stereotypical white male developer standing on a block and leaning comfortably on the bar, while a black woman has no box and is jumping to reach the bar but is still not even touching it.
Sketch 4: We can't find the talent!
Continuing on this theme, while companies lament on not being able to find talent to fill roles, they continue to use recruitment techniques that privilege straight white men, such as referrals which tap in to the networks of existing employees that tend to be as non-diverse as the employees, and looking for "culture fit". If companies are only looking to white men to fill the talent shortage then they are overlooking 3/4 of the population!
I have illustrated this with two generic white male developers in the front row, who by their lap top stickers one would assume work for Google and Facebook, and are therefore not available for hire. Behind them, being overlooked, is a diverse group of people who each have a hand raised to volunteer for the job roles.
Sketch 5: Similarity Kills Innovation
For my final sketch, I wanted to show one of the results of lack of diversity. We see four almost identical white male developers all working on their (identical Mac book) laptops. The stickers on their laptops show they all working for very similar companies. They each also have the same "Disrupt" sticker, which is ironic because they are working on such similar things.
Roughs
After receiving feedback, I realized that I had not paid enough attention to the audience and call to action for my poster. So I decided to continue with my poster on the issue that there are not enough people to fill the jobs in tech and yet companies mostly hire straight white men, which only represents around 1/4 of the US population. I wanted to address my poster to hiring managers to communicate that they will be able to hire more effectively if they cast a wider net. Each rough contains the clear call to action "Hire Diversely". I have used predominantly blue and white color schemes as these are the colors of the internet. Specifically, the lighter blue is Twitter blue and the darker blue is Facebook blue. Similarly, I have use variant's of Roboto as this is Google's font.
Rough 1: "Our Team"
This iteration is a play on the "Our Team" / "Our Leadership" page that you see on many company's websites. These pages all to often tend to be overwhelmingly white male, so I tried to put together a page that reflects the actual diversity of the US population. I used stock photos, but it was challenging to find images that made a cohesive set.
Rough 2 - Zoom Out
For this version, I worked with SVG icons from FlatIcon.com instead of photos. Here I have tried to illustrate the concept that hiring managers need to cast a wider net, by showing someone zooming out from two white male candidates to see a whole host of diverse candidates. The zooming action is represented with the touch interaction icon.
Rough 3 - Ignoring 3/4 of the Population
For this one, I wanted to be very direct with the idea that if you are only hiring white men then you are ignoring about 3/4 of the population. I have done this with an a approximately proportionally group of people and the non-white males are faded out and have been written over to show how little attention is being paid to them. Here I used the same icons as in the previous rough, but have removed the facial features to further simplify.
Final Poster
After another round of feedback, my rough 2, seemed to be the most well received, so I continued in that direction. I tidied up the typography and added a drop shadow to the hand. Previously, I had trouble positioning the hand so that it didn't cover the diverse faces, so I added more faces and now it is covering a generic white male instead.
In my previous version, the clothing colors had been somewhat haphazard. In this version I made this more intentional and included colored backgrounds to enhance the effect. All the white males are wearing black and are on gray backgrounds to imply uniformity. They are also smaller to imply the effect of zooming out to see the normally hidden faces. All the normally hidden diverse faces have been assigned one of the colors of the rainbow to further imply diversity. I also removed some of the curved edges to make the style more tech and less cutesy.
