Selene Hinkley is a content strategist (aka UX writer, aka content designer) at Shopify. After starting in web content, she transitioned to product content strategy with a focus on information architecture. An advocate for systems thinking, she currently works on Shopify's Polaris design system and documentation. Her latest obsession is component page information hierarchy, which is as sexy as it sounds.
What was your favorite place to visit as a child? When's your anniversary? Where did you meet your husband or wife? These are seemingly harmless security questions, yet I feel frustrated when asked to define myself by my marital status. And what about the people who don't have anything "favorite" about their childhood? How do these questions make them feel? It's emotions and questions like these that led me to start reading Technically Wrong, by Sara Wachter-Boettcher. Many of the services we rely on are full of oversights, biases, and ethical issues: Chatbots that harass women. Signup forms that fail anyone who's not straight. Since we're talking about principles today, I thought I'd share Sara's message about how it's time for tech to get principled and start actively questioning our biases and assumptions. I've seen first-hand the positive impact diversity has on teams and the products we create for other humans. Reading this introductory book will help you challenge your own ways of thinking and encourage you to pause and consider the consequences your products can have on humanity.
Selene Hinkley
