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G. Fitzpatrick:
"Designing good technologies requires new sensitivities & skills";
Talk: Online Conference: School of Computer Science: Basser Seminar Series, Sydney (invited); 2020-06-10.

Building good technology is hard and getting harder, especially as technology is increasingly entangled in every aspect of our lives. Think ubiquitous devices, social networking, big data, Internet of Things, smart everything, AI and so on. As the designers/builders of these technologies, we wield considerable power, as rightly evidenced by the public debate around biased algorithms and the influence of social media. There are also more subtle ways our `small´ design choices wield power that we are often not aware of. Using vignettes from research in HCI/CSCW and health IT areas, this talk will bring a socio-technical lens to illustrate example choices and their implications, both at the interface and on the practices through which technologies are incorporated into everyday life. This reinforces that what we design is not just technology, but ways of being human, as is increasingly being acknowledged. More critically, it highlights the need for new sensitivities, skills and alliances and for being critically reflective, empathic and diversely skilled practitioners. This has implications not only for us, but for how we educate the technology developers of the future.