Book: SE@Google Ch: Engineering for Equity

[zhoukerrr]

Book: https://abseil.io/resources/swe-book/html/ch04.html
Chapter: Engineering for Equity

Summary:

1. Bias Is the Default

• Fail to focus on users of different background and you will fail the users
• Everyone has certain biases
• Unconscious biases are more difficult to mitigate than the conscious ones

2. Understanding the Need for Diversity

• know the demographics of the target users
• Focus on those that are different from us, especially potential users
• Diversity within the team helps

3. Building Multicultural Capacity

• understand how the product can advantage and disadvantage different groups of users
• Technical skill + discernment to know what can be build (identify and reject controversial features/product)
• engineers wield great responsibilities that can influence billions of users
• Slow down and ensure that minimal biases are introduced
• Responsibility of both individuals and the employers

4. Reject Singular Approaches

• No one size fits all solution
• Understanding the entire problem is the key
• Targeting the majority first then working on edge cases is flawed. This gives people who are already advantaged a head start
• By building an inclusive design from the start, we enhance the experience for all users
• Challenge Established Processes

Application to RepoSense
The users for RepoSense are mostly based in nus. However, we had received a request to support foreign languages. While this may not be a priority for the team in the near future, it is definitely something that we can look into to further expand our user group.

I believe that everyone adds great value to the project as everyone comes in with a new perspective. In RepoSense, this constant addition of new members is a diversity is some way.