ANNIE JEAN-BAPTISTE: Hi, everyone.
I'm Annie Jean-Baptiste, and I lead product inclusion
at Google.
Product inclusion is all about bringing an inclusive lens
throughout the product design process,
and I'm excited to share a little bit about how
we've been doing that.
First, I just want to welcome you to the session.
This may be a newer concept for you,
and so I hope that it's helpful.
But I'm super excited that you're
spending the time to learn about product inclusion today.
Before we get started, I just wanted to level set
and have a shared framework around what we mean
when we say product inclusion.
Product inclusion is about building, designing, coding
for everyone.
So no matter who you are, where you live, what you look like,
we want to make sure that you feel thought
of in the entire product design process
and when you pick up a product or service.
And so at Google, we want to make
sure that we're bringing that inclusive lens
throughout everything that we create.
So the first thing that's really important to think about
is really, how this ties back into Google's mission.
And so we talk about organizing the world's information
and making it universally accessible and useful.
It's really the universal piece that we're leaning
into in product inclusion.
And we say not just for some, for everyone.
So I talked a little bit about some dimensions
that we think of, but it's really important to make sure
that everyone is thought of in the process
and especially, those who have been
historically underrepresented in the product design process.
Now this work builds on a lot of great work, namely
accessibility work and Next Billion Users work.
What happens with product inclusion
is that we actually look at 12 dimensions of diversity
and the intersections of those dimensions.
What I mean when I say the intersections
of those dimensions is that users aren't in a silo.
They don't have one thing that makes them who they are.
And so it's really important to think
about everything holistically when you're
building products or services.
Using myself as an example, I'm a black woman.
I'm also left-handed.
I'm not black on Monday, a woman on Tuesday,
and left-handed on Wednesday.
All of those things are encompassed
within me, affect how I move through the world,
and definitely affect how I use products.
And so we want to make sure that we're thinking holistically
about all of those dimensions when we're building.
So on this slide, you're seeing a few of the dimensions
that we look at.
Again, we look at 12.
But things like gender, age, ability, education,
socioeconomic status, and more are really
integral into making sure that you're asking, who else?
And really broadening who your users could and should be.
It's also really important to note
that there's a lot of untapped opportunity
when you bring an inclusive lens and really center
those who have been historically underrepresented.
So what you're seeing on this slide
are a bunch of statistics around things like purchasing power,
digital usage for a lot of the historically
underrepresented groups that we focus on
with product inclusion.
So you can see stats as it relates to accessibility.
There 1 billion people in the world with a disability--
for example.
Or you can look at 700 million users coming
online in the next few years.
It's really exciting that there's so much opportunity
when you bring an inclusive lens,
and that can really affect your business
and being able to serve even more users.
It's important to note that product inclusion is not just
one point in your process.
It's really throughout the process.
And the earlier that you bring it in, the better.
So you can bring it in an ideation,
for example, when you're starting
to think of a product or service that may
have an untapped opportunity.
But what's really important is to highlight and understand
what key points in the process you're
going to bring that inclusive lens.
We call those inflection points.
And on this slide, you can see there are multiple inflection
points where we started to bring that inclusive lens
throughout the process.
And the goal is that the end result is
more inclusive of more people.
So next, I'm just going to jump into a few case studies
to help you understand what our product inclusion journey looks
like, and how this can actually be put into action.
So this first video is from a team
that worked on camera sensors.
And what they wanted to do was really
ensure that they brought this inclusive lens
and ensured all skin tones were accurately represented.
What I love about this is that it shows that no matter where
you are in the organization, you have a part
to play in building for everyone and with everyone.
So with that, we'll roll the video.
[VIDEO PLAYBACK]
[MUSIC PLAYING]
- Pictures tell stories.
It doesn't really matter if it's a selfie
or if it's a portrait that somebody
is taking of another person.
You are sharing in that human moment.
- take a picture of you two.
1, 2, 3.
No, he's too dark.
- So this is where the discussion started.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
- Here, just use my phone.
It's got a better sensor.
- A better sensor?
What does that even mean?
- Color chaining is an extremely complicated process.
When we look at images, what we try to do
is figure out how much of a difference
there is between, let's say, a reference image
and the image that we actually are trying to quantify.
We were running some tests on a product,
and it was the proximity sensor we were testing.
And we said, oh, it looks like it does 60 centimeters.
And we looked to each other, and we go, we're both white.
The technology itself, as many people will say, is not racist.
It's just that it wasn't tested properly
to make sure that the designers weren't unconsciously biased.
Hey, there's an entire world out there,
and we want to make sure this works for everybody.
I love the fact that we get to influence cameras.
And we get to share those experiences
of life and emotion.
And, to me, that is what imaging is about.
It as a vehicle to express humanity.
- Take a picture of you two.
1, 2, 3.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
[END PLAYBACK]
ANNIE JEAN-BAPTISTE: The next case study
I'd like to show you is with Duo Low Light Mode.
What Duo Low Light team did was be
intentional about bringing diverse perspectives
to the table from the beginning of their process.
At Google, we have what we call inclusion champions, who
are Googlers from across the globe in multiple dimensions
of diversity, who have helped us dog food
or user test our products.
So the Duo Low Light mode team knew
that they wanted to make sure that no matter where
you were in the world or if you had certain lighting
or you had light or dark skin tones,
you were going to be accurately represented
when using this video product.
And so, they worked with our inclusion champions
to make sure that we tested across multiple dimensions
of diversity.
To make sure that, again, everyone feels beautifully
and accurately represented and thought
of when they use the product.
Now I'll go into a little bit of the research
that we've been doing over the past year on the business
case for inclusion.
I hope it's helpful to start to frame what
users and consumers are thinking about as it relates to products
inclusion, but also how you can start to implement it
in your everyday work.
So the first piece of data that I wanted to share with you
all is that there are four places in the product design
process where it's really important
to bring that inclusive lens.
Those four points are the ideation, user research, user
testing, and marketing phases.
Now a few slides back, I showed you
an end-to-end product inclusion process
slide, where you saw multiple inflection points,
or points in the process where you could bring product
inclusion into the fold.
That being said, when we did research and looked
at a bunch of different teams across Google, what we found
was that these are the four points where teams constantly
came back to.
And also, these were the four points
where if you did bring an inclusive lens
and were intentional about doing so,
you actually disproportionately created
a more inclusive product.
And so we encourage you all to think about
if these four points in the process
make sense for your organization,
and how you can bring that inclusive lens to those four
points.
It's also important to just start to ask, who else?
So, for example, if you're starting
to ideate within your organization,
maybe bring someone from another piece of the organization
or another team into the brainstorming
because they'll likely have different perspectives.
If you're already doing user research,
maybe you do user research internationally
or with a different demographic than you usually do.
These small changes can lead to really big results
as it relates to bringing that inclusive lens.
The second piece was that 100% of teams
that brought an inclusive lens into their process
did so at least two of the four touch points I just mentioned.
So either the ideation, user research, user testing,
or marketing phases, they did at least two.
So it may be the ideation and marketing or the user research
and user testing.
But they made sure that it wasn't just
an isolated point in time, but that they were doing it
throughout the process.
And I think that that's really important.
Not only because you're starting to think holistically
about your process, but also you can involve different team
members and different organization members who
have different expertise to, again,
start to bring more perspectives that have historically been
underrepresented into the fold.
Another key finding was that both underrepresented
and majority groups prefer inclusive marketing and product
design.
What does that mean?
It's been a notion that only underrepresented groups want
to see themselves reflected.
And what we found is that that's actually not true.
Everyone, or the majority of people,
want to see diversity and inclusion,
both in marketing and storytelling,
but also in product design.
And so I think that that's a big shift
that we want to make sure that we think about.
It's not just those who have been historically
underrepresented, but it's actually
underrepresented in the majority consumers or users.
The last finding that I'd like to share with you all
is that teams, no matter their representation,
that were intentional about bringing an inclusive lens
were able to do so.
So regardless of the team makeup-- and we
talk a lot about the systemic changes that
need to happen in order to have representation and inclusive
culture, that is incredibly important still.
But even as you're working to get to that representation,
you can start to work on product inclusion now.
So regardless of the makeup, if you're setting standards,
if you're holding yourself and your team accountable,
you can actually start to make headway
in building that inclusive product.
So now I'm just going to go through three principles
that we help to guide teams along their product inclusion
journey.
The first one is to address the user.
So I showed you a few of the 12 dimensions
that we focus on as it relates to product inclusion.
But really, thinking about what dimensions
have been underrepresented in your process,
and bringing those into the fold.
You want to address the users.
Again, asking, who else?
And continuing to expand the pool who uses
could and should be.
The second one is to start with equity.
So inclusion shouldn't be an afterthought.
It's not something that comes in after you've actually
created everything.
How can you bring it in earlier on in the process
and at multiple points in the process?
Again, this doesn't sit within one team.
It sits within all parts of the organization.
And so, how are you making sure that you
found those key process points.
And you've brought the key stakeholders in
to help move that along.
And the last one is to continually test.
So just like any other part of your product design process,
this needs to be iterative.
You want to make sure that you aren't just checking a box,
but you're constantly shifting.
You're constantly improving.
You're constantly getting feedback, just
like any other part of your product design process.
You want to make sure that you're learning,
you're growing, and you're bringing more voices
into the fold, and you're adapting
as you're getting feedback.
So this, just like any other part of your process,
you want to commit to.
You want to have standards and accountability frameworks for.
And you want to constantly, constantly be improving.
And so with that, thank you so much for joining the product
inclusion session.
I hope it was helpful, and have a great day.
Thanks so much.