Audrey Bennett

• MFA, graphic design, Yale University
• Professor (Full) at University of Michigan

Using typography as its exemplar with its lack of clear performance criteria, this article questions what is good design and how to measure a designer’s accountability. Evaluation criteria are teased out from various perspectives: credibility, ease of use, stakeholder inclusion in the design process, respect for cultural dimensions and whether it a...

No longer passive spectators of images, these days we are more likely to be active participants in their production, distribution, and consumption - which raises important questions about the consequences of widespread user interaction on meaning, communicative effectiveness, and society at large. In this groundbreaking book, visual communication e...

Automation and industrial mass production, particularly in sectors with low wages, have harmful consequences that contribute to widening wealth disparities, excessive pollution, and worsened working conditions. Coupled with a mass consumption society, there is a risk of detrimental social outcomes and threats to democracy, such as misinformation an...

Search engine algorithms are increasingly subjects of critique, with evidence indicating their role in driving polarization, exclusion, and algorithmic social harms. Many proposed solutions take a top-down approach, with experts proposing bias-corrections. A more participatory approach may be possible, with those made vulnerable by algorithmic unfa...

The Latin roots of the word reparations are "re" (again) plus "parere" which means "to give birth to, bring into being, pro-duce". Together they mean "to make generative once again". In this sense, the extraction processes that cause labor injustice, ecological devastation, and social degradation cannot be repaired by simply transferring money. Rep...

This paper analyzes interviews with African American women cosmetologists who collaborated in designing and implementing a series of community-centered science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education programs to support broadening the participation of Black children in those fields. These collaborations used technologies and medi...

Transformative improvements require systemic change in an economy marked by extreme wealth inequality, stratified by geography, identity, and other social markers. In this chapter, we seek to raise awareness in the technology, design, and scientific communities of the long history of artisans—skilled, independent labor striving to keep a relatively...

The pressures that create current social and environmental disasters—global warming, wealth inequality, racism, misogyny, and war, to name a few—are daunting to contemplate. It seems foolish to think that something as small and fragile as a plant could oppose them. But plants and humans synergistically working together—what we will refer to as phyt...

The term “freethinking” originated in the 17th century to describe inquiry into beliefs which were accepted unquestioningly. Feminists such as Mary Wolstonecraft, abolitionists like Frederick Douglass, and novelists such as Mark Twain and Zora Neal Hurston are among the many who dared to simultaneously challenge religious dogma, patriarchal convent...

Extractive economies alienate value from those who generate it. But the development of a generative economy-one that maintains value in unalienated forms, and circulates rather than extracts-requires more than simply establishing "openness". This paper examines the spectrum between fully open and accessible technologies, and those that are strictly...

Examples of the cosmolocal tempt us to make a wish list: we want solar over fossil fuels, civic engagement instead of mass media, worker ownership replacing corporations, and so on. But wish lists are vulnerable to appropriation: you can hear words like “sustainable” and “empowerment” throughout corporate propaganda. Wish lists are also poor at ada...

Students' lives, both in and out of school, are full of different forms of value. Wealthy students enjoy value in the form of financial capital; their fit to hegemonic social practices; excellent health care and so on. Low-income students, especially those from African American, Native American, and Latinx communities, often lack access to those re...

Inequity and social injustice are omnipresent wicked problems, complex challenges for which there are no single solutions due to their cross-cultural, cross-disciplinary, and systemic nature. For example, the 'green revolution' of the 1970s was supposed to solve world hunger. However, we saw a rise in corporate control over agriculture (Pielke and...

The economy for artisanal products, such as Navajo rugs or Pashmina shawls are often threatened by mass-produced fakes. We propose the use of AI-based authentication as one part of a larger system that would replace extractive economies with generative circulation. In this case study we examine initial experiments towards the development of a cell...

Culturally responsive computing (CRC) frames the localized knowledges and practices of Black, Brown, and Indigenous communities as assets for working toward racial justice in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). A key part of CRC is the role that local communities play in designing and/or implementing curricula and technologies...

Background: As teachers work to broaden the participation of racially and ethnically underrepresented groups in computer science (CS), culturally responsive computing (CRC) becomes more pertinent to formal settings. Objective: Yet, equity-oriented literature offers limited guidance for developing deep forms of CRC in the classroom. In response, we...

The economy for artisanal products such as Navajo rugs or Pashmina shawls are often threatened by mass-produced fakes. We propose the use of AI-based authentication as one part of a larger system that would replace extractive economies with generative circulation. In this case study, we examine initial experiments towards the development of a cell...

Today, with decolonisation on the rise in the West, comes a timely compendium titled Educating citizen designers in South Africa edited by Elmarie Costandius, an associate professor of Visual Arts and coordinator of the Master of Arts in Visual Arts (Art Education) at Stellenbosch University, South Africa and Herman Botes, acting director of the Vi...

Artificial intelligence (AI) is poised to eliminate millions of jobs, from finance to truck driving. But artisanal products (e.g., handmade textiles) are valued precisely because of their human origins, and thus have some inherent “immunity” from AI job loss. At the same time, artisanal labor, combined with technology, could potentially help to dem...

The economy for artisanal products such as Navajo rugs or Pashmina shawls are often threatened by mass-produced fakes. We propose the use of AI-based authentication as one part of a larger system that would replace extractive economies with generative circulation. In this case study we examine initial experiments towards the development of a cell p...

This paper was delivered at the following invited presentations: Bennett, Audrey. “The Difference it Makes Who is Speaking: An Auto-ethnography of Minor Literatures in Graphic Design at Yale School of Art.” Design History Fridays Group, California Institute of the Arts (CalArts), July 12, 2019. Invited talk Bennett, Audrey. “The Difference it Mak...

This paper describes a decolonial perspective on material agency in the context of STEM education and application. Using the framework of generative STEM, we engaged in case studies with African, African American, South American, and Native American educational communities. This research shows that understanding material agency based on Indigenous...

Removing racial bias from algorithms or social process is necessary, but alone it is insufficient. The "bias" framework tends to treat race as unwanted noise; best when suppressed or eliminated. This attitude extends to classrooms, where an attempt to be "colorblind" leads to what Pollock calls "colormute"; fearful of even mentioning race. Just as...

In the U.S. there are steady efforts by governmental and philanthropic organizations to increase the representation of students of colour in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). After years of mixed results, researchers and educators have started to question one size fits all notions of broadening participation. An increasing n...

This paper introduces a generative framework in which translations of Indigenous knowledge systems can expand student agency in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). Students move from computer simulations to physical renderings, to repurposing STEM innovation and discovery in the service of Indigenous community development. We...

Extractive economies pull value from a system without restoring it. Unsustainable extraction of ecological value includes over-fishing, clear-cut logging, etc. Extraction of labor value is similarly objectionable: assembly line jobs for example increase the likelihood of cardiovascular disease, depression, suicide and other problems. Extraction of...

Artificial intelligence (AI) is poised to eliminate millions of jobs, from finance to truck driving. But artisanal products-(e.g. handmade textiles) are valued precisely because of their human origins, and thus have some inherent "immunity" from AI job loss. At the same time, artisanal labor, combined with technology, could potentially help to demo...

Artifcial intelligence (AI) is poised to eliminate millions of jobs, from fnance to truck driving. But artisanal products (e.g., handmade textiles) are valued precisely because of their human origins, and thus have some inherent “immunity” from AI job loss. At the same time, artisanal labor, combined with technology, could potentially help to democ...

Recent scholarship in computer science (CS) education shifts from a focus on the technical-cognitive skills of computational thinking to the socio-cultural goal of computational participation, often illustrated as remixing popular media (e.g. music, photos, etc.) in online communities. These activities do enhance the participatory dimensions of CS,...

Como a matemática pode melhor contribuir para a justiça social e a sustentabilidade? A justiça distributiva aborda a pobreza e os problemas relacionados de cima para baixo: movendo o valor extraído da propriedade privada para a propriedade estatal. Mas, a história do socialismo burocrático, da poluição na URSS à escassez de alimentos na Venezuela,...

There’s been a paradigm shift in design from focusing on aesthetic worth to focusing more on the interplay of form and function to assume social responsibility and to pursue social change through innovation. As a result, the discipline needs models for how to educate responsible designers who see design not only as a commercial enterprise but more...

Resumen In the United States, the disciplines of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (also widely known as STEM) attract very few African American, Latino, and Native (indigenous Alaskan, North American, and Pacific Islander) students. These underrepresented students might be more attracted to STEM disciplines if they knew STEM educa...

Ethnocomputing is the study of the intersections between culture and computing. In addition to cultural analysis of computing, it also utilizes computing to model artifacts or practices from a given culture. In this essay, we consider three modes of modeling. In the first mode, the knowledge flow is unidirectional: the researcher analyzes indigenou...

The emergence of open-access alternatives to industry-standard, image-making software enables non-designers to design professional images. This chapter extends by situating those metrics within an interdisciplinary framework that includes technical and professional communication. It provides educators in technical and professional communication wit...

The race and gender gap in US STEM education achievement reflects the legacy of historical forces which include colonialism and the exclusion of women in higher education. But it also reflects the decontextualized character of standard educational forms. We report on cSELF (Computer Science Education from Life), an intervention which brings togethe...

The phrase "broadening participation" is often used to describe efforts to decrease the race and gender gap in science and engineering education, and in this paper the authors describe an educational program focused on addressing the lower achievement rates and career interests of underrepresented ethnic groups African American, Native American, an...

The act of seeing is a crucial part of creative problem solving in design thinking. This paper aims to codify seeing into a series of visualization techniques for defining the problem; rendering representational drawings of concepts; and professionally presenting those concepts to a public. To begin, it is important to first operationalize design.

When designers localize an image’s denotative elements according to the users’ cultural preferences, research shows that it improves user experience and cross-cultural usability. However, this paper reports that, even when localized denotatively, culturally-based disparities—dissonance between how the designer communicates and how the user interpre...

The phrase "broadening participation" is often used to describe efforts to decrease the race and gender gap in science and engineering education, and in this paper the authors describe an educational program focused on addressing the lower achievement rates and career interests of underrepresented ethnic groups (African American, Native American, a...

The phrase “broadening participation” is often used to describe efforts to decrease the race and gender gap in science and engineering education, and in this paper the authors describe an educational program focused on addressing the lower achievement rates and career interests of underrepresented ethnic groups (African American, Native American, a...

Purpose: To offer additional tools for the assessment of effectiveness and usability in technology-mediated communication based in established heuristics.Method: An interdisciplinary group of researchers at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute selected five disparate examples of technology-mediated communication, formally evaluated each using contempor...

In this paper, we introduce the phrase “cultural robotics” to refer to the interdisciplinar yanalysis of autonomous machines and their mutual construction with society: as culture constructs robots, they are (re)constructing us. The objects we study range from industrial manufacturing devices to socially-intelligent robots (SIRs), and our disciplin...

Fractals are patterns that repeat themselves at many scales. In the context of African art and design, that simple characterization takes on profound meanings that can move across disciplines and geographic boundaries. Fractal patterns can be found in African architecture, textiles, sculpture, music, and many other places. The means by which comput...

In this paper, I challenge the assumption that the golden rectangle originated solely in ancient Europe and examine existing evidence within broader interdisciplinary discourse that the golden rectangle is more of an outcome of interaction between African and European civilizations.

The GLIDE'12 paper presentations were selected through a double blind refereeing process. For the first round of reviews, we received 26 abstract submissions. To keep GLIDE a small conference, we did not extend the deadline in order to receive more proposals. Access at http://baohouse.org/GLIDE12proceedings.gomezandbennett.pdf

In this essay, I reflect on a teaching experience that made me ask "what are the standards for good design in a socially conscious age?" My reflection describes an experience I had teaching engineering majors about what constitutes good design. I then compare that experience with another experience teaching graphic arts majors the practical aspects...

Conference description of the topic: A 2005 education survey by Metropolis Magazine showed no consensus among practitioners or educators about what constitutes design research; limited access to research indings from professional practice; nascent use of students as interns in the research process; and great confusion about what design issues deser...

Bourdieu and Passeron (1973) famously defined cultural capital as the accumulated cultural knowledge that confers power and status. Their original work explained many of the intangible advantages that allowed the upper class to obtain better status jobs, education, etc. Here we extend this concept to include "computational capital"—the concepts, sk...

In spring 2007, multicultural users evaluated the usability of a graphic design exemplar—a culturally-specific graphic designed for cross-cultural communication. The graphic—an HIV/AIDS awareness and prevention campaign poster—was designed three years prior in a participatory manner with third world laypeople and first world educators. The intent o...

The Usable Content Project aims to develop a set of useful paradigms for the analysis, design, and testing of usable content in a post-document world. In planning work supported by the STC, we have brought together a multidisciplinary team of Rensselaer faculty and students to explore a variety of post-document exemplars and develop an over-arching...

and he eats for a day. Teach a man to fish, and he eats for a lifetime. a fr i c a n p ro v e r b The problem of AIDS in Africa is well known; it is both a threat to economic and political stability and, more importantly, a global humanitarian crisis. Research shows that communication is key to AIDS prevention in Africa. In the United States, HIV/A...

Ethnomathematics is the study of mathematical ideas and practices situated in their cultural context. Culturally Situated Design Tools (CSDTs) are web-based software applications that allow students to create simulations of cultural arts—Native American beadwork, African American cornrow hairstyles, urban graffiti, and so forth—using these underlyi...

This paper introduces emotive aesthetics as visual language that expresses and/or evokes an emotion or a series of emotions from the target audience for a rhetorical purpose. (e.g. persuading them to make a positive change in a life-threatening behaviorial pattern). Historically, political graphics have been popular examples of products that use em...

This article serves several purposes. First, it posits that math is a source for the long sought after black cultural aesthetic [1] for graphic design. Second, it brings to designers research that has revealed the historical existence of advance mathematical principles in indigenous African art, architecture, and culture. Third, it recommends to Af...

In this paper, I independently build on an earlier collaborative effort with Dr. Cynthia Breazeal (MIT Media Lab) to integrate social and cultural theory and applied graphic design theory and practice into the participatory design process of a socially intelligent robot prototype called Kismet. My objective is to explore the feasibility of facilita...

What role does creative design theory and practice play in the mechanical and technical design of socially intelligent robots? It may be true and evident that creative design theory and practice can play a variety of roles since some socially intelligent prototype robots already exist. The question then becomes: What future role(s) should creative...