Design for Safety: A Strategic Action Plan for Building Safer Tech Products
By
Kevin Cornell
Summary
An excerpt from Chapter 5 of Eva PenzeyMoog's book "Design for Safety" (published by A Book Apart). The chapter provides a strategic action plan for integrating safety considerations into tech product design, emphasizing that good intentions alone are insufficient. It addresses how designers and developers can reduce the risk that their products will be weaponized by abusers, with a focus on protecting marginalized and vulnerable groups from dangerous and unethical tech outcomes.
Source
A List ApartDesign for Safety: A Strategic Action Plan for Building Safer Tech Productsalistapart.comKey quotes
· 3 pulledAntiracist economist Kim Crayton says that 'intention without strategy is chaos.'
We've discussed how our biases, assumptions, and inattention toward marginalized and vulnerable groups lead to dangerous and unethical tech—but what, specifically, do we need to do to fix it?
The intention to make our tech safer is not enough; we need a strategy.
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