Day 2-HCI 2.0: Humanity Deserves the Attention that the UX Research Has to Offer

• I began my research in Jakarta in 2016/2017 at a time where there were massive concerns in the United States on the impacts mobility platforms had on the labor market, drivers, exploitation
  • There was a broad concerns about algorithms being the boss, and a lack of agency for drivers

• I went to Jakarta with similar narrative of how native Indonesian platforms were transforming the mobility market
  • But there, pre-existing practices organized an unregulated market in Jakarta, and that market was still present despite the disruption
• The biggest difference was driver self-organizing around physical locations called base camps, which platforms wanted to remove
  • Drivers continued their practice of participating in these camps—which had uniforms, badges, and even souvenirs and elections

• This was completely unexpected, in contrast to the USA
  • This stuck with me, and the importance of grounded qual research, and developing relationship with people on ground

1. First: Context matters, and tech doesn’t have a consistent, universal impact. Designers assumptions of what tech will do varies from NY to Jakarta.
   1. To disrupt our own assumptions, we need to be talking with end-users
2. Second: Once you put things out in the world, there will be a lot of innovation from the users
   1. Users are smart and innovative, and innovation comes from users rather than companies
   2. For Jakarta, MP assumed apps would connect drivers to riders, but mobility in SE Asia means you can’t show up wherever you want, and can’t wait on the street to be picked up
      1. So there were demand hotspots were where drivers couldn’t pick-up customers
      2. Drivers recognized this mis-match and created their own hacked apps
         1. This resolved a lot of problems specific to their local context— like auto-accepting orders
         2. Features were great, and mobility platforms even integrated them later with official platforms
      3. Give credit to users and context

3. Pravag: Mentioned being surprised by impact apps had on these communities relative to the US and North America. Idea of algorithm as boss didn’t apply in Global South.

Prayag: I see researchers as flag-bearers in our communities, and UXRs did try, but there was a gap between what company should build, and the what community actually needed. How can we as UXRs narrow this gap in engaging community and users, and what are our ethical responsibilities to do so?

• To discover rich insights on why something is happening and how

• For example AI-models are automated, but classifiers of ’toxic content’ have in-built assumptions as what is narrowly defined in US as ’toxic’
  • As a qual researcher you can build evaluations to grasp the social context for toxicity and how things differ across the world
• There are limits to classification techniques, so we need qualitative UXR to get the foundational knowledge of the local context
• Qual expertise also pushes back against automated measures, and using human feedback for development pipelines, where people have checklist for toxic content
  • But answers change on who and what and how you ask
  • We can design better human-in-loop guidelines than what we have now, and think of limitations of what we have now

5. In terms of AI platforms, do you feel there is still a gap from an ethical point of view from what companies are doing, and what needs to be done? Do you see the gaps persisting ?

• We are often bringing in researchers at the end to test out the tech, as opposed to thinking of foundational insights as to whether the tech is useful or not

• Researchers in this moment think of the power they can bring, and a big-picture plan that can be executed at different levels and ways
• Let’s say we want to make space for more diverse and inter-disciplinary conversations, like building humanistic tech
  • This requires kind of expertise you may not have, which includes lived experience, and interaction with communities working on the issue

• Idea of bringing researchers in design process, and giving community power to say X is not helpful
• Power of UXR to bring this impact to bosses, and tell management that community doesn’t want tech

6. How do you balance the power dynamics described above, along with an environment of dis-investment in research, and a fear of rocking the boat on the part of UXR?

• We need to be reflective of processes for research, and give space for what we’ve seen to challenge our own assumptions of expertise as researcher
  • We don’t treat users as checkboxes
• Be wiling to throw out what you thought you knew, and recognize what you thinks makes no sense in a particular context

• In many companies, desire for non-western research focusing on a single country like India
• But even in India there is a political landscape that is fragmented
• UXR is often done through vendors, and  there is often a gap between researcher and underlying communities
  • UXR draws up the protocols and sends it out
  • I’m uncomfortable with this approach as it assumes our initial questions are alway correct

• Our power is permanent despite macro-economic conditions
• Being on look-out for opportunity to bring in other voices, and other perspectives
  • We all have pockets of agency, and need to recognize what to do with power

1. Beyond critical reflexivity on dynamics of research process, how can we shift power within the community?

• Invest in relationship building by partnering with local members of community who can vouch for you as  important and recognize that process will be long, along with the norms of the community
• Don’t parachute in and out, and not think about impact you are having on the community

• But in Jakarta, this approach couldn’t work, as people were welcoming you as a guest
• So other ways were needed to compensate them
  • This included contributing to a community fund, and having tea together as equals,
• Be open to challenge assumptions of what relationships look like, and build relationships before you go in
  • Need to be humble, and pre-build relationship with local partners before you go in
  • This is absolutely critical, as parachuting of research is real

2. What was reaction of the mobility platforms to the driver’s base camps? Was it seen as problem, opportunity, something else?

• Drivers put a lot of effort into building camps, and had to bear cost for building it out

• Companies recognize base camp as good solution, but aren’t investing in their own camps
• This will take a lot of time to change this, as platforms were resistant to idea of base camps to begin with