[Freedombox-discuss] updates to plinth

[Ted Smith]

On Mon, 2012-03-12 at 14:59 -0400, James Vasile wrote:
> On Mon, 12 Mar 2012 18:15:27 +0000, Ted Smith <tedks at riseup.net> wrote:
> > On Mon, 2012-03-12 at 18:47 +0100, Mathieu Jourdan wrote:
> > > 
> > > - my girlfriend took briefly a look on it, she said those colours were
> > > for males. 
> > 
> > I'm no authority on this list, but I'd appreciate it if the freedombox
> > initiative would use actual research for things like choosing
> > gender-neutral design elements whenever possible. Most actual, empirical
> > research on gender differences runs against gender stereotypes and finds
> > mostly similarity, not differences, between genders. Further, the
> > gendered context of design elements will change drastically between
> > cultures. As such, our intuitive judgments as individuals will not be
> > the best indicator of the actual gender-neutrality of design elements.
> > 
> > I can devote some of my copious free time to doing some of the
> > scholarship necessary for this (and I can act as a proxy to retrieve
> > paywalled papers for anyone who asks). I will need guidance and specific
> > questions, rather than general ones.
> 
> Ted, I appreciate the caution and the methodical approach.  I don't,
> however, see tremendous value in testing what colors we use at this
> stage.  At this point, tinkering with colors will distract us from
> making more substantive progress.  We will test interfaces at a later
> date, and if colors are a problem then we can address it later.
> 

I agree completely on not getting caught up on picking colors right now.

I just wanted to note that people are starting to focus on a very
important problem: removing gender bias from the FBX interface. (this is
more general than just picking colors, and I want to emphasize that.)

When people start attacking that problem, they need to use the strongest
possible weapon: empirical research. Otherwise, we risk putting a lot of
effort into things that we have no way of knowing are right.
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