Tooling Justice: Articulating Equity Work Through Design Toolkits

Paper Title

Tooling Justice: Articulating Equity Work Through Design Toolkits

Publication Info

• Topic area: Design equity toolkits and their role in advancing equitable practices in technology design.
• Keywords: design equity, toolkits, UX design, equity work, articulation work, boundary objects, workplace equity, design justice, HCI, participatory design.

Background and Problem

• Problem / challenge: Existing design equity toolkits are criticized for being either too generic to address nuanced equity issues or too narrowly focused to account for broader complexities. They often fail to provide actionable guidance for designers working within organizational constraints.
• Significance: Addressing equity in design is critical as technology increasingly shapes societal structures and individual experiences. Effective toolkits can help redistribute power in design processes and support marginalized communities.
• Motivation and related work: Prior research has critiqued toolkits for oversimplifying complex equity issues, requiring expert mediation, and failing to address workplace dynamics. This study builds on these critiques by exploring how toolkit creators and early-career designers align or diverge in their expectations and priorities for design equity toolkits.

Solution

• Proposed approach: The study investigates the attributes and applications of design equity toolkits through interviews with toolkit creators and a walkthrough workshop with early-career UX designers.
• Novelty:
  1. Identification of six key attributes for design equity toolkits: simplicity, usability, flexibility, plurality, reflection, and officiality.
  2. Analysis of tensions between toolkit creators’ conceptual intentions and early-career designers’ practical needs.
  3. Reframing toolkits as mediating artifacts that support articulation work and legitimize equity efforts in organizational contexts.
  4. Recommendations for future toolkit designs to better support advocacy and power redistribution.
• Procedure and key techniques:
  • Conducted interviews with six creators of four equity-focused toolkits to understand their design intentions and priorities.
  • Organized a walkthrough workshop with 15 early-career UX designers to evaluate how toolkits are applied in practice.
  • Used thematic analysis to compare insights from creators and participants, identifying alignments and tensions.

Results

• Concrete findings:
  • Toolkit creators prioritized attributes like flexibility and reflection to encourage long-term shifts in designers’ perspectives.
  • Early-career designers emphasized simplicity and usability, seeking clear, actionable guidance for workplace application.
  • Aesthetic elements (e.g., visuals, tone) significantly influenced participants’ engagement and trust in the toolkits.
• Advantage over baselines:
  • The study highlights how toolkits can serve as boundary objects to align diverse stakeholders, translating equity principles into actionable practices.
  • Toolkits are shown to legitimize equity work within organizational settings, addressing gaps in prior research on their practical utility.
• Experiments / evaluation:
  • Interviews with six toolkit creators representing four toolkits: Community-Led Co-Design, Liberatory Design, Creatures Framework, and Ethical OS.
  • A three-hour workshop with 15 early-career UX designers, focusing on applying toolkits to real-world advocacy issues.
  • Analysis of workshop data revealed participants’ preferences and challenges in using the toolkits.
• Limitations and future work:
  • Participants were limited to UX design students, which may not represent all potential toolkit users.
  • Workshop sessions allowed only 40 minutes per toolkit, limiting deeper engagement.
  • Future work should include diverse user groups (e.g., non-designers, professionals in various fields) and explore longer-term toolkit applications.

Summary

This study examines the role of design equity toolkits in advancing equitable practices, identifying six key attributes (simplicity, usability, flexibility, plurality, reflection, and officiality) that creators aim to embed. While creators focus on fostering reflection and flexibility, early-career designers prioritize actionable guidance and workplace applicability. Toolkits are reframed as mediating artifacts that support articulation work, aligning stakeholders and legitimizing equity efforts. The study offers recommendations for future toolkit designs to better address power redistribution and support advocacy in organizational contexts. These findings contribute to the growing discourse on equity-focused design practices in HCI.