DIAL Design

I am 27-and-4-months-to-28. I started working when I was 22. That’s 5 plus years of being in the workforce! And all this time I have written. Copy, SEO, personal statements, business plans, tech insights, etc. I have worked from my various homes across these years. From a laptop or a phone. As a freelancer or contractor or a short-time full time staff. And I don’t know if my experience is unique, but I never built any work relationships. You know, because of the nature of roles I’ve taken where you’re hired to do whatever for a period of time and you mostly work alone or have all conversations with an editor or a manager or a founder and after you’re done, it’s bye and off to the next. (Why is it giving bed warmer?) Anyway, last year, I realized I apparently was headed towards a change that I didn’t want at first or accept because I didn’t know what to expect. But if you read my first essay this year or followed me on Twitter, you’ll know I finally succumbed to the tide of my life’s journey and this year was to be my last year working as a writer or doing any writing-adjacent work that isn’t creative like poetry, fiction, and the likes. Well, the last day is here!🎉 I am exhausted. I am proud. I am happy. I am hopeful. And I am grateful too. To everyone who ever helped me, held my hands, recommended me, hired me, whatever. You helped me live a life I didn’t imagine was truly possible. Because when I graduated uni, finished the 1-YR compulsory NYSC for Nigerian graduates, and even got a corporate job I turned down to write, deep down I wasn’t sure I could really truly survive off it. I thought it couldn’t be done and I would eventually need to get another corporate job and write on the side. But I did it! All 5 years! And now, while this phase is over, a new one is emerging. I am returning to my roots in creative writing. But not only that. From 2025, I will be starting a new career in social design research both at DIAL Design and as an individual. That being said, I have a (wish)list of career goals: - For myself, I want a paid social research assistantship job that will allow me learn by doing hands-on field research and data collection. - For DIAL, I want to work on building (1) an image data bank focused on disability representation and (2) another data bank for African and Caribbean related data. I need ideas on how to approach this, partnerships, etc. - If I wrote about it in the 10 out issues of DIAL Weekly, we are open to related opportunities. Read those here: https://lnkd.in/d_TPAhTq ✨ I saw someone write about Nikki Giovanni that she was "outside" and "in full participation with her life". That inspired me and has become one of my major goals for my life now, not just 2025. I want a career that lets me interact more with people not just my phone. More importantly, I want to find ways to do more than lay in bed (like I am rn). What are your 2025 goals?

Read our last issue of the year 🎉

Love that today is/was World Toilet Day! Coincidentally, our issue today of DIAL Weekly covered accessible environments where we spotlighted Marsham Court Hotel--one of the most accessible hotels in the UK and the only one with a changing place facility that includes a colostomy shelf, nonslip flooring, shower chairs of different types, adult-sized changing bed, and more. Although not in Australia, we at DIAL Design want to recognize the commitment to accessibility the hotel has made and continues to make. You can also read and download the full issue here: https://lnkd.in/dn84gFNY On Thursdays we publish a more accessible version on our Medium blog: medium.com/dial-design #Accessibility #ChangingPlaces #WorldToiletDay #ToiletTuesday #AccessibleBathrooms

In this issue of DIAL Weekly, we cover accessibility in the physical environment. Including special mentions of Julie Sawchuk and brands like WelcoMe, Sociability, Marsham Court Hotel, and the disability literacy webinar on Wednesday organized by the Inclusive Workplace and Supply Council of Canada (IWSCC). Accessibility is more than a digital issue. Read more about this in the attached document. #Accessibility

The exhausting part of doing our weekly issues at DIAL Design is having to write these LinkedIn posts to go with it. Not sure why but maybe it's having to think of what to say every time, how to explain the content, think of how to make it compelling enough so you actually care to read it, and then what damn hashtags to use. Exhausting. This has been the worst part of my Mondays these past 6 weeks. Other than that, I really love researching and writing and publishing these and I hope it's helping you think about and approach design more equitably. Also, thank you if you've been reading and reposting. I appreciate it. __ Now I'm done rambling! Another Monday, another DIAL Weekly Issue and we're at #06 now🥳 Today's issue is a piggyback off a post I made last week referencing Cardi B and the attribution of intelligence based on dialect. -This issue explores language bias (lexical racism and raciolinguistic biases) in the real world and now its existence in algorithms used in education, employment, criminal justice system, and more. -We also spotlight ChatBlackGPT™ by Erin Reddick and @Spark plug AI by Tamar Huggins two AI tools focused on improving black representation and contexts through their tools. Spark Plug specifically helps translate educational materials into AAVE. -Lastly, we reviewed a paper on covert racism lingering in language models and how using the matched guise probing method cann help rid algorithms of these hidden biases. That's all we have for you this week. As usual, please read, share, and enjoy. And please drop a feedback if any. #LanguageModels

There’s a lot of racism in the ways people attribute intelligence. Last week I found *a paper about how AI generates racist biases about people based on their dialect. That’s a thing I hadn’t really thought of before but since then, I’ve been observant of real world scenarios. Recently, Cardi B, an American rapper endorsed Kamala Harris for president while speaking at a Kamala Harris rally in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. While delivering her speech she spoke in her regular dialect which Cardi herself calls a broken form of English and could be seen as a form of African American vernacular. But because of how she speaks, there were comments that called her unintelligent, incoherent, and ‘clearly not educated to speak simple English’. I have attached a Facebook comment from her former AP Government teacher who spoke about Cardi’s excellence in a US History regents exam. I know there are other (very silly) factors that make people think she isn’t a worthy person to endorse a political candidate, but some of what I’ve seen, maybe half of the comments were about her dialect and the way she speaks. This is an example of the *accent/dialect prejudice that exists with people attributing certain biased traits to people based on how they speak. And like every other unchecked racial stereotypes making its way into AI, so is this one. From machines not understanding the voices/accents of non-Westerners or those with speech differences to AI now furthering these harmful racial biases based on people’s dialects alone, again, we need more intersectional algorithm checks. I say intersectional because while there’s a lot of focus on the more blatant forms of racism, there’s not much about the hidden forms. Also, we need to un-popularize the scraping of and use of unchecked data and instead emphasize the importance of model developers collecting and building more diverse datasets. What are your thoughts? Have you experienced any form of prejudice cos of how you speak? * as used in this post signifies a link to a resource which you can find in the comments. #LLM #AIBias

Issue #05 of DIAL Weekly looks at the necessity of regulations and governance for AI use. - We cover some existing regulatory policies like the EU AI Act and the NO FAKES ACT - Briefly touch on the issue of AI chatbot companions including the most recent one facing a lawsuit for the death of a 14-year-old boy. - And also an op-ed from @Lisa D. Dance titled "Are We All Unpaid Workers in the AI Value Chain?" In this short writeup, Lisa shares about the unethical ways training data is being sourced without consent from members of the public. She also gives examples like the woman who found her private medical images as part of the dataset used in training Stable Diffusion and Google Imagen. The purpose of this issue isn't to spread hate or fear about AI. Like I wrote in the front page section "What lines should AI cross and shouldn't we be holding it's hands?", it is instead to advocate for more ethical practices and approaches to it. As someone with a background in design, I am very aware of the ways we add friction and limitations to products to protect users from bad behaviors and mistakes. Why don't we carry this same approach into the design of AI by considering more responsible and regulatory practices that protect both people and environments? At DIAL Design, we provide AI Governance as a service to help companies and governments develop and enforce ethical and safe AI regulations and practices. Our process is collaborative including all stakeholders including consumers and innovators interests. And we provide services across your model's lifecycle. From data sourcing to deployment and ongoing management. Enjoy the issue attached below! And as always, on Thursday, the more accessible version will be up on our Medium blog. #AIEthics #AIGovernance #AI

It’s Thursday. Meaning, the more accessible version of DIAL Weekly is up on Medium. Read it here: https://lnkd.in/d727d6rd If you’ve read either of the two issues out, what did you like or learn? Image description: the 8 pages of the last issue of DIAL Weekly.

Read the new issue of DIAL Weekly here! #DesignJustice #Bias #AI #AIBias #Tech4All

When we talk about inclusive designing, can we extend the concession to also include the experiences of children? From public spaces to vehicles to policies, if design affects you as an adult in whatever capacity, then it surely has an impact on children too. Yet this demographic is one that’s also been grossly underrepresented in design data and research. Our editorial in this week’s DIAL Weekly covers this topic in an article titled ‘A need for child-friendly cities & public spaces’. Read it here: https://lnkd.in/gVyEWHC9 In this week’s issue, you will also be getting: - Tips on writing/designing accessible emergency communications as shared by Inclusive Social Media Strategist Alexa Heinrich. - Details on the partnership between Good Relations and WE RISE 365, INC. to design the first black and mixed race hairstyle emojis and how you can support them for free. — As always, there’ll be a Thursday recap on our Medium publication. So follow us using the link in the comments. If you have feedback, events to share, or you want to contribute to an Issue, please send an email at [email protected] Image description: front page of DIAL Weekly Issue no.2. It features an image of a child holding a paper with ‘This is going to be a street for kids!’ on it. #InclusiveDesign #Urbanization #UrbanDesign