This week I learned that the Nextdoor app added nudges to the user experience to reduce racial profiling and online bullying. The app prompts users who appear to be reporting a crime to consider whether what they're seeing is really a crime (walking in a neighborhood isn't, for example) and to not rely on racial description in their reports. Nextdoor encourages users to provide more unique and complete details, such as clothing, tattoos, and facial hair.
Those nudges reduced racial profiling on the app by 70% globally. The app also has a built-in content moderator that prompts users to consider kindness when replying to posts. This nudge led to 1/3 of replies being rewritten.
Nextdoor showed an awareness of behavioral science by using nudges to shift users towards inclusion. One of my favorite books on the subject is Inclusion Nudges, a crowd-sourced collection of behavioral science-approved "nudges" that, among other things, aim to set inclusion as the default. Fun fact: one of my nudges from my former wedding career is in there!
This matters because, unless we change the systems and policies so that inclusion is the default, there's going to be an awful lot of bias and harassment. Because we're human, after all. (That's why my book Inclusive 360 is heavily focused on policy change.)
Here are some of the other good vibes I learned this week:
The state of Michigan removed a 6% sales tax on tampons and other menstrual products. This matters because tampon taxes burden especially women, who also face a significant pay inequity.
Olay redesigned its famous moisturizer jar to have an easy open lid. Turns out the old jar design wasn't accessible. Olay made its lid design open source so other brands can use it as well to improve accessibility. This matters because everyone deserves to have a choice in skin care products.
The Netflix show, Another Life, which admittedly, I haven't seen, is a model of disability and non-binary representation. The show gives the characters well-rounded depth (including sexuality) and doesn't treat them as stereotypes or tokens. This matters because we are all much more than these parts of our identities, even when we're exploring space on a TV show.
Run Signup, a major sports race registration system, has enabled an option for non-binary participants that's now available to all races who use this very popular system. This matters because it makes it easier for races to include non-binary athletes, and, in turn, for non-binary athletes to feel included in races.
Image by Tom Wilson