Shaping a Path Forward: Ongoing Influence of Bardzell’s Foundational Feminist HCI Paper
From the universal to the nuanced. From concentrated power to a participatory approach. From exclusive to inclusive.
In her foundational 2010 publication, Dr. Shaowen Bardzell, a Professor and Chair of Georgia Tech’s School of Interactive Computing, highlighted that while feminism had already positively impacted the field of Human-Computer Interaction (HCI), and specifically interaction design, in some ways, it was still fragmented and ad hoc at the time.
To address this gap, “Feminist HCI: Taking Stock and Outlining an Agenda for Design” describes how feminism can be integrated more generatively and systematically into interaction design research and practice.
To provide structure on the evaluation and application of feminist HCI into interaction design, Bardzell outlines six characteristics of feminist interaction design, including pluralism, participation, and advocacy.
Now, 16 years later, feminist scholarship in HCI has bloomed into a transformative research agenda. Bardzell’s feminist HCI paper has received over 1,700 citations from researchers across the world and, based on increased citations each year, shows no signs of being less influential to the HCI field, providing a way for researchers and designers to investigate assumptions and widen their perspective.
How Feminism and Interaction Design Are Complementary
“Feminism is a natural ally to interaction design, due to its central commitments to issues such as agency, fulfillment, identity, equity, empowerment, and social justice,” writes Bardzell in the abstract of “Feminist HCI: Taking Stock and Outlining an Agenda for Design”.
Bardzell’s 2010 paper outlines a vision and describes how feminist theory and praxis can systematically shape interaction design in research and practice.
For example, Bardzell describes how pluralism challenges the perspective of a single, or universal, point of view and the development of solutions with “Universal Usability,” citing the failed example of Whirlpool’s “World Washer.” In this example, the problem was that the washing machine was modeled on Western technological norms and practices regarding the shape, weight, and durability of clothes being washed, and, when used in South India, it destroyed garments, especially women’s saris.
Providing an example of where pluralism was applied, Bardzell describes a visual phonebook for people with low literacy in rural India. To develop and release this visual phonebook, the design team engaged with and interviewed community members with low literacy to learn about how they were currently storing contact information. The result was a phonebook that allowed people to organize contacts’ phone numbers by color and icon, with each corresponding to a button on the number pad.
At the core of pluralism and the other five characteristics of feminist HCI described in the paper, which are participation, advocacy, ecology, embodiment, and self-disclosure, Bardzell describes how drawing from feminist standpoint theory encourages human-computer interaction researchers to think about nondominant users in their work. That is, designing with, from, and for, a worldview that supports empowerment, access, and equity.
16 Years of Impact and Future Waves
Bardzell is now the director of the Georgia Tech Equity and Sustainability in Computing (ESC) Lab located in the Tech Square Research Building (TSRB). The ESC (pronounced just like the word, “escape”) Lab’s research aims to envision a more equitable future for those marginalized by creating diverse socio-technical conditions and challenging the traditional views of universal solutions in computing.
In addition to Bardzell’s foundational 2010 publication and her 2011 paper, “Towards a Feminist HCI Methodology: Social Science, Feminism, and HCI,” it’s Bardzell’s ongoing commitment to the field that has made a difference over the past 16 years and continues to inspire research agendas in HCI.
“Bardzell’s philosophical commitment has led to diverse areas of feminist HCI research, including critical computing, justice-oriented HCI, sustainable interaction design, intersectional HCI, queerness, and more,” said Soonho Kwon, ESC Lab member. “That is actually how I got to know more about what Bardzell does and what inspires my work.”
As a PhD candidate in Human-Centered Computing at Georgia Tech, Kwon studies technology advancements and deeply human experiences. Kwon highlighted one such project grounded in feminist thinking that explored how parents with LGBTQ+ children in Korea navigate diverse information infrastructures to recover from the emotional toll after learning their children's queer identities. Kwon's work, rather than providing universalized solutions, foregrounds the culturally nuanced experiences of the population he works with, thereby recognizing the importance of plural approaches in computing and information science, an orientation that resonates with feminist perspectives.
At the core of the ESC Lab’s approach is “investigating users, use situations, and technologies where culture is strongly implicated in the success of the technology.” This approach provides a foundation for exploring topics such as second-hand clothing, textile waste, platform economy, and sustainability, as Jolie Klefeker, ESC Lab member and PhD student in Human-Centered Computing at Georgia Tech, explores. "I want to understand how technology can fuel social issues, like overconsumption. But also, how it can be used to build sustainable futures with circular modes of consumption, for example."
Feminist HCI theory and methods can also provide a lens to critique how current and emerging technologies may fall short for some communities. ESC Lab member and PhD candidate in Human-Centered Computing at Georgia, Catherine Wieczorek’s research on the use of AI in healthcare explores. This work and the related paper, “Architecting Utopias: How AI in Healthcare Envisions Societal Ideas and Human Flourishing,” outline critical questions about how these systems enable certain kinds of experiences not only for patients but also for healthcare providers, shaping how healthcare will function not only in individual interactions but across care systems.
ESC Lab member and postdoctoral research scientist Sylvia Janicki’s work brings together humanistic theories with tangible, embodied design. She often explores environmental problems through a critical disability lens, engaging themes of pollution and toxicity, productivity and rest, and the policies of more-than-human relations. Since joining the lab, Sylvia has been examining environmental concerns around AI infrastructure, including hyperscale data centers in Georgia and semiconductor manufacturing in Taiwan.
From projects focused on deeply human experiences to fashion and technology, AI in healthcare, and the environmental footprint of AI infrastructure, what unites these projects is their roots in Bardzell’s 2010 publication and ongoing commitment to feminism. These projects continue to reflect upon, explore, and strengthen our understanding of the sociocultural impacts of interactive technologies.
"Feminist HCI gives design a new language, and with it, a new way of worlding, " said the ESC Lab.