By Natalie Yee and Michael J. Metts. This post has also been published on Michael’s blog.
Over the past few years, there has been a big focus on inclusion in the design community. There are lots of articles, podcasts, and conference presentations where people working in UX share best practices and case studies. Most of these resources focus on helping designers create more inclusive products that work for all types of people. While this external focus continues to grow, it’s also important to look at ways to be more inclusive within the design community. One area of opportunity is user experience (UX) books.
When Michael Metts and Andy Welfle started on Writing is Designing: Words and the User Experience, they wanted a way to see past their own perspectives and challenge their own assumptions, which is why they contacted Natalie Yee. Michael had worked with Natalie at a previous job where Natalie led the company's diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) efforts. The idea was to see if Natalie would be willing to review the book from an inclusion perspective.
Natalie’s approach to inclusion resonated with Andy and Michael. Many of the books she’d read seem geared towards someone who spends hours outside of work reading UX books, is familiar with or active in design discussions on Twitter, and has many years of experience. This person already knows all the jargon, acronyms, and references. Catering UX books to this audience is leaving out many current and future UX professionals. Without an intentional and committed focus to making a UX book more inclusive, it likely will end up written for a narrow audience.
Having never written a book before, the authors weren't sure how this would work, but they wanted it to. They hired Natalie to read it and give her perspective.
Here’s what Natalie said about choosing to take on this project:
My decision to partner with Andy & Michael on an inclusion review had a lot to do with the existing efforts they’d taken. The book was already written in a very inclusive way with a diverse range of contributors, intentional usage of gender neutral pronouns, and simple language. This showed me that they were fully invested in writing an inclusive book and they weren’t just checking a box or doing it for show.
Michael and Natalie wrote this post to share their approach, in hopes that this practice becomes more common in publishing.
Including other people in the narrative
Some of the most common writing advice people give to would-be authors is to stand up for yourself and boldly lay claim to your ideas. However, even before contacting Natalie, Michael and Andy wanted to include lots of different perspectives in their book.
While a case could be made that the authors had plenty of experience in the field, they felt that including the voices and perspectives of others made the book more useful and accessible, because readers would have a greater chance to hear a story that relates to their own.
This idea led to over 20 interviews with practitioners working in the field, many of which became part of the narrative of the book. Some books treat interviews like this as sidebars, but the authors wanted these interviews to be part of the core message of the book, and found places in the body of their chapters where the interviewed voices complemented their own.
Writing and editing with a focus on the reader
As an inclusivity reviewer, Natalie scoured the nearly invisible layer on top of the writing that influences the reader's emotional response. Have you ever read a book that made you feel an extreme emotion because of how it was written and not the plot or characters?
For a non-fiction book like Writing is Designing, things like jargon, idioms, niche references, and word choices that make assumptions about the reader all contribute to this layer and have the power to make a reader feel excluded. In one example, Natalie explained how the word “marginalized” could have a negative, unintended connotation.
Natalie’s feedback on the term “marginalized” in an early manuscript.
Here’s what Natalie said about this process:
One could argue that this is unnecessary for a book that was already written very intentionally with diversity and inclusion in mind. I’d argue that by seeking out an inclusivity reviewer, something that isn’t done frequently in the UX book world, Michael and Andy really put their money where their mouth is (an idiom I would have recommended they not use in their book). By that, I mean that they took their own advice from chapter 5 when discussing inclusive, accessible experiences in technology, ,”It’s not an optional add-in -- it should be embedded in the way you work.”
Approaching the process with sensitivity
The authors were new to writing a book and to some of the DEI concepts Natalie applied to their book via the review. One example was the idea of intent versus impact, which Michael at first was unfamiliar with. The review caused him to do more learning and reading on his own, helping him understand and apply the feedback.
Here’s what Michael said about working through these edits:
Keeping a humble, open mindset is what enables this. Learning in the context of writing a book can be stretching, but it's necessary. This type of work is personal, and during a review like this, it can feel like your ideas are being dismantled. That's because they are. Rather than feeling defensive, focus on the benefits you want to bring to your reader, because that's what makes all of this worth it. It's for them, not for you.
As the authors went through these edits, they began to see how at times, the writing was too focused on their own experiences and could have unintentionally alienated some readers. The process helped them create a stronger reader focus.
Practical takeaways
If you’re writing something big and want to make an inclusion review part of your process, here are some tips:
Think about inclusion throughout the writing process, not just when it needs to be reviewed. As a focus on inclusion becomes more common for UX books and beyond, it’s essential to have several different approaches. An inclusion review needs to happen alongside other efforts that show a true commitment.
Work collaboratively. Like any good work between multiple people, it's best done with shared understanding. Michael and Andy started with Natalie's comments on their manuscript, but it was necessary to talk everything through, and even go through several revisions in one case.
Be creative. Feedback from a review like this doesn't have to mean cutting material. Sometimes the authors used plain language or explained a concept via a footnote, maintaining the narrative, but making it accessible to more people.
Pay the reviewer. Natalie’s work made the book more accessible to broader audiences, and it would have been unfair to ask her to do it for free. Michael and Andy paid Natalie for her time and inclusion expertise.
Our hope is that this practice becomes more common, leading to a UX community that is more welcoming to anyone who wants to be part of it. If you have any questions or would like to learn more, please feel free to get in touch.