What kind of white man do you aspire to be?

While conducting project research, I came across the following pitch on the L.A. Times website:

Upon clicking, I proceeded through a series of screens, each presenting a question and a grid of photos to select from as my response. The VisualDNA corporate site refers to these as “highly viral image quizzes.”

The grid above gave me particular pause. It’s asking the viewer to place themselves in one of those photos. As a white woman, I feel a little shut out. What about a black woman? What is she to make of that photo of a white guy hugging a displeased-looking black baby? How does that represent success to her?

This is a terrific example of the dangers inherent in using photos at the exclusion of words to represent the needs and mindset of your presumed audience.

It is nearly impossible to convey a generic aspect of the human experience with a photograph of a specific individual. I’ll admit an allowance for some few great artists.

Even those proffered grids pertaining to less highly-charged topics—such as choice of preferred treat or general topic of interest (books vs television)—require a lot of work and a cognitive leap. I squinted at an inch square image wondering whether it portrayed a laboratory or a prison. Once I figured out what the specific image represented, I then had to abstract to the category. Was I pondering my relative concern about prisons in general, or prison healthcare, or was that an execution chamber?

Why make people work so hard and risk neglecting or insulting huge swathes of your audience, particularly when you are trying to demonstrate how well you can learn their priorities and preferences? Is it really merely to justify a reductive, restrictive aesthetic choice?

The same technology could have easily used an interface like that of Hunch, which imposes a minimal cognitive burden on participants in its surveys and avoids the pitfalls of specific representation.

The L.A. Times serves and represents an immense, diverse population. While admirably embracing new ways to reach and understand people they stumbled into an old way to alienate them.

Written by Erika Hall on January 19, 2010 |