names

In 2016, the artist Deborah Roberts created “Pluralism Series,” a series of prints that, borrowing the aesthetic of a Microsoft Word document, lists the names of Black people. Name after name has that jarring squiggly red line underneath it, as if it was a misspelling.

I know this squiggly red line all too well. As a Black, Nigerian woman, design and technology often fail to acknowledge my middle name “Ogorchukwu” or my last name “Iyamah.” Roberts’ piece made me think of the many ways in which my name has been “othered” by design. Sometimes it’s autocorrect changing my name to the nearest Anglo name; sometimes it’s a form’s input field telling me my middle name has too many characters, and sometimes it’s the notification that the name in my email is simply invalid.

default

One of the main barriers to designing equitable realities that dignify communities of color is something I call the white default. Designers often use the white default to make assumptions about how everyone shows up in the world, which ends up contributing to practices that exclude.

The white default teaches us that to be white is to be “the norm”

This can look like facial recognition that is unable to detect people with dark skin, “nude” products such as Band-Aids that only cater to white skin, speech-to-text software that mistranscribes Black speakers nearly twice as often as white speakers, or medical illustrations that only display white skin.

data

In an effort to get a better sense of how design and technology have impacted people’s experiences with their names, I created a community survey titled, “Say My Name, Say My Name.” Over three days, I received 257 responses from Black, Indigenous, and people of color across the diaspora. I also spoke to experts who are passionate about ensuring the inclusion of people’s names in technology.

  • 87% said spellcheck implies their name incorrect.
  • 80% said autocorrect changes their name.
  • 50% said speech-to-text autocorrects their name.
  • 23% said forms assume they have a middle name.
  • 23% said they are told their name is incorrect when creating an account.
  • 21% said forms don’t allow accents, hyphens, apostrophes, or symbols.
  • 21% said their name exceeds character limits.

As one participant wrote: “From kindergarten to fifth grade, my parents shortened my name so that it would be easier for people and software to spell and pronounce correctly.” Anurag Agarwalla, an engineering manager at Uber, explained that many “white default” design assumptions occur even before we interact with interfaces: “The keyboards on which we type are optimized for English, so at the input level there is a natural disadvantage.”

change

While some participants responded that they add their name to a dictionary or give up on whatever they were trying to submit, many adjusted themselves.

  • 38% shortened their name.
  • 30% used a different name.
  • 22% changed the spelling.

“My name has history,” one survey participant wrote, “and connects me to my ancestors… so it’s frustrating when technology undermines its importance.”

People have to constantly engage in what I call digital assimilation, which speaks to the ways in which Black, Indigenous, and people of color are urged to whiten ourselves in order to mitigate the racist barriers we face in the digital world. People often view assimilation as voluntary, but when digital products default to whiteness, assimilation is always covertly or overtly forced.

voice

Digital assimilation happens constantly - from changing how we pronounce words so Siri can understand, to adjusting lighting so Zoom backgrounds work. Each of these moments tells us that survival is tied to abandoning cultural markers: clothing, language, accents, and names.

mispronouncing one's name without making effort = deeming their culture insignificant

Thien Joseph Dang, a UX strategist, argues that building a more inclusive future begins with challenging defaults and centering non-white people in the design process. Listening to diverse users and building diverse teams helps reveal where products are restrictive or not fit-for-purpose.

repair

There are individuals working to change this. Joseph Akoni created The P-Zero PM and helped build LinkedIn’s name-pronunciation feature. Richard Ishida at the W3C coordinated multilingual web standards and created tools like the Internationalization Checker, along with resources like “Personal Names Around the World” to guide engineers. Companies like Namecoach provide accurate audio name pronunciations integrated into tools like Blackboard and Salesforce. Founder Praveen Shanbhag started it after watching his sister’s name be mispronounced at her graduation — the defining moment meant to honor her.

When we design beyond the white default, we create experiences that allow people to show up authentically. Inclusive design expands markets, strengthens trust, and prevents people from paying for products that work worse for them. As law professor Rashmi Dyal-Chand argues, poor design that privileges whiteness creates real economic inequality.

As builders of technology, we have a responsibility to create products that empower people to show up as their whole selves. Sometimes that starts with recognizing that names don’t fit into a fixed space. Sometimes it starts with allowing accents and symbols. Sometimes it starts by saying a name — and saying it right.