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Discussion on: Diversity and the tech meritocracy

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vizune profile image
Sasha Richardson

I have an example of someone from a different background bringing up good points. A Junior Account Manager was recently recruited at the company. She studied social sciences at University and was an advocate for web accessibility.

The company were researching UK council sites because a future project was going to involve building one ourselves (where web accessibility is crucially important). The boss noticed a feature on one of the websites that he wanted to be implemented. It said "Visited Pages" where it saves the web pages you visited on the site for easier access next time you visit (e.g. a lot of people visit the site to find out what day their trash/recycling bins will be collected by the council).

She made a very valid point that this site also had pages with advice for those experiencing domestic abuse/violence at home and it would put the user at even further risk if someone else in the household used the same computer (or went through their phone) saw that they visited those pages.

When we think of people from "different backgrounds" we tend to think of race, gender, sexuality, etc. We should also consider those that don't come from the traditional educational background and those that studied other subjects not similar to Computer Science as they can also bring great value to discussions and decisions being made.

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samuraiseoul profile image
Sophie The Lionhart

Oh wow, that's a super interesting insight I would have never in a million years thought of! Thanks for sharing! :D