Confront your microaggressions
An exploration of microaggression awareness in real-time conversations and long-term tracking and learning system
Role
Concept, Research, User experience, Animation, Testing
Duration
Dec 2018 - April 2019
Committee
Adam Smith
Miguel Cardona
Many thanks for your guidance and support in my thesis project!
The prompt
Help people aware of microaggressions and change their behavior in daily communication
The problem
We all have stereotypes, all the time, without knowing it. These biases come from our various background, cultural environment and personal experience.
We consciously and unconsciously reveal these attitudes and beliefs through different ways in everyday life. It might hurt a certain person or a group through your implicit actions verbally or nonverbally.
78% of people experienced at least 1 microaggression over a two-week period.
The definition
“Microaggression is a comment or action that subtly and often unconsciously or unintentionally expresses a prejudiced attitude toward a member of a marginalized group.”
The solution
Make the invisible visible.
Leverage technology to help people notice and rethink their microaggression behavior in real time, educate and inform people to interact better with each other.
Scenario 1
The aggressor notices the microaggressive behavior immediately
- Quickly save events
- Save for later recall and training
- Track behavior for improvement
The microaggression is recognized and raised by the recipient
- Quickly save events
- A quick overview of the person talking with, to help determine potential risks or consequences of responding
- Choose preset less attacking language
The aggressor needs to respond to the recipient as soon as possible
- The aggressor’s watch got locked until initiate a further conversation
- Confront the problem with each other in a timely manner
Scenario 2
View daily activities and track a specific microaggression
- A clear overview of the records of their microaggression
- Choose to track particular microaggressions based on their preferences
Interact and engage in the community
- Friends at the same stage of achievement are able to encourage and motivate each other
- Badge awards empower people to be more aware of their behavior
Track long-term microaggression stats
- Provide insights on how the user’s performance in the past week or month in a visualized way
- Be able to improve their behavior and keep track of them
Motivate users to learn and apply
- Read and learn about the impact and how to improve their behavior
- Have a quiz to make sure they gain the knowledge of the particular type of microaggression
My process
Interviews
Current pain points
- The recipients of microaggressions always feel a sense of powerlessness and invisibility, while the aggressors were often unaware of the harm they’ve brought.
- The recipients of microaggressions are often regarded as oversensitive and take offense too easily.
- Because microaggressions are so subtle and ambiguous, it's often hard to know if you're committing one or if you're on the receiving end.
- The recipients of microaggressions have a significant negative impact on their mental and physical health.
Target audience
Students and faculty who experience microaggression in daily communication and have difficulty to pinpoint and respond microaggression within the school community
Office workers who would like to pay more attention to how they talk in the workplace to improve personal growth and build a more inclusive environment
Personas & their typical days
Recipients’ emotional journey
How might we
Sketches
I brainstormed different possibilities of each screen and thought about
- Provide people with direct and obvious visual and tactile stimulation in the conversation
- Allow users to view the microaggression they made and received at a glance
- Give quick training according to different types of microaggressions
- Minimize the conflict and encourage effective further communication
Visual design
For both the watch and mobile user interface, I utilize color to indicate different status and level of intensity, for example, the pinkish color represents an aggressive and unstable situation and the light green color expresses a safe and good condition.
Test & iterations
Insights after testing:
- Use color to indicate the intensity of different emotions, participants are able to associate red with anger, sadness with blue, green with safety, etc...
- Avoid long and small text
- Show clearly where the user is and how to interact with elements on the screen
Reflection
My purpose for the thesis project is to bring more awareness to people while communicating with others in daily life and I explored a new experience to have real-time detection and long-term tracking system to make microaggression less ambiguous and uncertain. Instead, it should be more visible and encouraged to confront and transform into a more positive conversation.
During the time I talked to people with different cultures and races and did some research about microaggression, I found out some typical scenarios that happen a lot among these people and came up with the idea to solve the problem. There are some technical and other issues I didn't take into consideration yet, which I hope I can have better solutions after further testing and deeper learning.
Thanks for scrolling! 
Feel free to reach out to me if you have any questions or interested in my topic.
Feifei Guo | Visual Communication Design MFA 2019
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