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10/01/2001 Archived Entry: "1-October-2001 -- WebWord Comment"

WebWord Comment -- Oh boy, hold on. I'm going to say things that need to be considered carefully. I'll start by saying that I am not a racist pig. I'm not trying to get anyone angry. I am only trying to start a conversation. Got it? When I think about web developers, graphic designers, programmers, usability engineers, information architects, and other folks in the web world, I mainly only think about white Americans. Furthermore, when I think about my readers, I generally think of them as being white, male, and American. Yes, this is a very bad situation. I even have plenty of evidence that it is not true! For example, I get emails from females all of the time. And, just today, someone from India sent me an email. But, when I post news or write articles, I generally think about my white American male audience. Don't get me wrong, those folks are fine, but black females are cool too. I just don't think about them all that much when I am working on WebWord. (Are there any black females reading this? I want you to speak up! I want your voice to be heard.) Do you have ridiculous stereotypes in your head? When you write, do you think about any person or group of people? Does your writing simply flow into the void? Are you writing for an audience, or are you just writing? Race and gender and nationality are not supposed to matter, but do they? When you generate content, how are you influenced? (John S. Rhodes puts on his finest asbestos suit.)

The Internet's probably the ultimate democracy. People choose to be part of your audience, just as people choose their presidents or prime ministers. However, there's always that 10% of the population that take their rights too far. I'm talkin' about the 10% responsible for political correctness, disclaimers, and the darwin awards.

Remember bonsaikitten.com? Disgruntled cat lovers got the FBI to launch an investigation on what obviously was a parody of bonsai art. These people would rather pick at red herrings than to appreciate the value behind personal content.

In an environment where hentai and ThunderCats Erotic Fan Art exists, some people will continue to choose to be offended. I choose to value insight and usability over senseless political correctness.

Posted by Francis @ 10/02/2001 09:39 AM EST

When you're writing about usability, information architecture, etc. what is the advantage of thinking of your audience as "being white, male, and American" (even if that is the statistical make-up of the audience)?

Why have race (or gender or age) in your head at all when talking about usability? Why not have "usability professionals" in your head as the intended audience (instead of "white, male, American usability professionals")?

I suppose nationality might affect usability, especially regarding language localization and character sets. I don't think I've ever seen anything that indicates race or gender significantly affect usability or information architecture. If there are studies like that, I'd question them based on the same way I'd question studies that "show" blacks do more poorly in school than whites, e.g. most of those studies don't control for environmental variables like income, family life, access to information, access to technology, etc. The causes are social, economic, environmental, etc. -- variables that are not dependent on race.

So what makes writing about those usability issues for a white male audience different from writing about them for a black female audience? If there's no significant difference, why do you need (consciously or unconsciously) to write to one audience?

Posted by Greg @ 10/02/2001 10:22 AM EST

John,

I have been reading your pages for a while and I really don't care that you are writing them for that white male. This female gets a lot of value from them. If it bothers you, perhaps you would benefit from developing a persona for your typical reader. Sounds like a good usability-type survey? Keep writing and I'll keep reading. Thanks for your advancement of what we do!

Posted by Sheryl @ 10/02/2001 10:30 AM EST

Instead of writing in such a way that you try to reflect who your audience is, write in such a way that you reflect who YOU are. (Sounds to me pretty much like what you end up doing anyway.)

That way you'll avoid ending up sounding fake and pithy. Like many sites do who write from the vantage point of thinking who they know they are writing to and giving them what they want. I've learnt this from experience a while back when I tried to draw a sci-fi comic series despite not being a fan of Sci-fi. It was terrible (and that's being nice).

Posted by Lyle B. Højbjerg-Clarke @ 10/02/2001 10:34 AM EST

i'm a female Korean american adoptee that when i write, i write about myself, which is sort of bodyless. But, when i read i always think the characters are male, white and generally american, and that i am always the protagonist, therefore white, male and generally american. when i read nonfiction efforts such as usability reports, i assume the authors are white, male, and that the generic subject is white and male. so, i always look at all such work with this qualification. But, i would hope everyone reads all docs with the understanding that authors are people with bias, etc, and hopefully with that understanding not invalidate the entire effort.

Posted by kim @ 10/02/2001 11:06 AM EST

That is usually what I do too, write thinking that the people are usually like me (20's or 30's - caucasian). Of course my Makovision Newsletter subscribers should really make me think differently because I have tons of women subscribers, as well as many Indian, Asian, and South American subscribers.

Posted by Don M @ 10/02/2001 05:58 PM EST

When I write, I picture a design with thick geek-hip glasses and wonderful Italian shoes and a need to express himself. then I drink a lot of coffee. then I picture an engineer -- brilliant, polyamourous, gorgeous, female, tattooed and convinced that all users are morons. then I drink more coffee. then I picture a marketing babe, blond and fluffy and eager to sell to the eyeballs! then I drink more coffee. then I picture an ia, a pretty stubborn know-it-all in overalls who spouts off theory then dances off to yoga. then I drink more coffee. then I picture my toes. cute little toes. then I write. Since I run a personal site, my first audience is always my toes.

My audience is multi-gender, multi-race -- but hyper-caricature of stereotypes who have a hard time hearing my ideas. These are my personas, the users who are hardest to get through to. John, you might want to create personas as well. you can make them female and male and multi-cultural and multi-countried and hang them on the wall over your computer. or you can write to your toes. Either way.

Posted by christina @ 10/02/2001 06:56 PM EST

You certainly don't mind putting yourself on the line. Neither do I. When I write I want to put my thoughts out there to whomever is in my audience...and I always assume (mistakenly sometimes) that they are intelligent, competent, generally unbiased folks, willing to look at something new...'cause I usually don't bother much with pablum writing. I'm just not a schmoozer. I always want people to consider, think, accept, reject, and generally ingest what I have to say. Maybe that way I'll have a tiny wee bit to do with helping the world be a better place. And I put myself on the line because I'm willing to do the same with someone else's writing. Like having just obtained from Alternative Radio the 1998 script of the brilliant writer/speaker Eqbal Ahmad, "perhaps the shrewdest and most original anti-imperialist analyst of Asia" (Edward W. Said) The paper is Terrorism: Theirs and Ours. It's awesome, it's inspiring. And it's essential for living in our brave new world.
And I do have a recommendation for you in your writing. Get out more, dear one. See this world and relax into it. Be with people of all sorts and kinds, and realize that they, each and every one of them, are the same kind of valuable 'present' (gift) that is presented to the world in everything they do as you are. Consider that everyone out there is of value...as much as you. 'Cause just white males...talk about yucky sterotypes. You're too bright for just that audience.

Posted by Lynne @ 10/03/2001 12:08 PM EST

Having a vision of your audience is critical for writing because the writing part is only half the communication equation; the other half is the reader's understanding.

So, regardless of whom you picture as your audience, the key factor is whether your writing is clear enough to get your point across regardless of your audience's ethnicity or gender. If it isn't, you've wasted your time and that of the audience.

As for political correctness:
PC dictates were supposed to do away with barriers and create harmony. I suggest that PC has actually caused more intolerance and dehumanized us.

We must now be perfect in everything we say and everything we do lest we offend someone. I don't know about others, but perfection is not something I have managed to achieve. I have never intentionally caused someone offense, but my humanity has led me to mistate my points at times.

It used to be that people would tolerate these mistatements, knowing from behavior patterns that these were not meant to cause offense. Now, however, it seems as if people are poised to jump on a person who mispeaks. Lawsuits abound because of such intolerance.

I think the events of Sept. 11, 2001, are an excellent example of where extreme intolerance leads.

Maybe we should take a step back and approach situations with common sense and tolerance instead of being guided by rules that form the basis of intolerance.

Posted by Jan @ 10/03/2001 12:19 PM EST

I think the events of Sept. 11, 2001, are an excellent example of where extreme intolerance leads.

are you a frigging moron? we still don't know why Sept. 11th happened. but there is a good chance it happened because a powerful religeous belief allowed some people to destroy another people they considered evil. i don't know how you could ever blame that on political correctness, even in its most stringent form. these days people are waving sept 11th like it's some kind of weapon to end any arguments. i'd rather not see sept 11th lead to a second mcarthyism.

as for you john: dude, you can write to anyone you want to. if you want to write to people other than white guys, why don't you cut out pictures of different kinda of people from a magazine like colors and thumbtack them up next to your computer.

Posted by locito @ 10/03/2001 12:28 PM EST

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