138 Why Is Diversity Important In Software Development?

Why is diversity important in software development? Is it just about quotas? Is there any value in having different types of people on a project? These are the questions we will answer in today's episode of Dev Questions.

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SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to the Dev Questions Podcast with Tim Corey. Join us each episode as we tackle the questions you are asking about a career in software development, understanding the industry, and new technology. If you're just starting out or you want to grow stronger as a developer, this is the place to get your questions answered. Now, here's your host, expert developer and online educator, Tim Corey.

SPEAKER_02 0:26

Why is diversity important in software development? This question came up recently, and I want to address it, but I want to address it in a way that I think makes sense, especially in our context. So, first of all, let's agree this is not about politics. We're not talking politics here. We're not talking about quotas. We're not talking about being required to do diversity. We're talking about what are the benefits to having a diverse group. That does not even mean talking about any type specific type. We're going to talk more about in general why this is valuable. So let's get into this question. Now, if you have a question you want answered, you can go to suggestions.imtimcorey.com and leave your own suggestion there or upvote an existing suggestion. Now, let's talk about what are the benefits of having a diverse set of people in organization or a diverse set of viewpoints in my group. Let's start off with a very simple illustration. Imagine you're an architect and you're building an office building. Well, if you are a person who has no disabilities, if you're a person who has never worked in an office before, if you're a person who has just learned about how to architect buildings from your school, what might you miss out on? What are the things that you might have blind spots in? Well, if you've always been able to walk on your own two feet, imagine what you would not think about. Well, you'd probably not think as clearly about wheelchair access because you've never actually been in a wheelchair. And you might say, well, oh no, I remember. I'd put you know ramps in all the all the doors. Great. So have you thought about how in the elevator the buttons need to be low enough for a person that is seated to also use? Have you thought about how that works in a bathroom? Have you thought about how far a person in a wheelchair has to go to get to the same spot? Maybe you have three stairs up to an entryway, but you have this long path to get there instead if you're in a wheelchair. So having a person on your staff or knowing a person who's been in a wheelchair or who is in a wheelchair can greatly increase your ability to properly serve them, to create a better plan when you're architecting this building. But it's not just that. What about if a person is blind? How would they see a building? How would they see metaphorically? How would they best navigate? What are things that would help them? What are some ways to make it a better setup for them? Here's a really simple one. What if you talked to a person or knew a person who actually had worked in an office before? Because you know what? There's some important things there. For instance, you probably don't want the cubicle right next to the bathrooms. Well, if you had architected it differently, maybe you have the ability to put the bathroom somewhere else, maybe across in the copy room. That's better. So having somebody with experience in an area helps you to create a better plan to serve more people. When you have something that is an app or is a building or is it whatever it is, if it has been designed in a way that has a broader set of viewpoints, it handles or it is able to serve more people better. And it's a better overall design. So that's kind of what we're talking about when we talk about diversity. And this is kind of important. So let's talk about how it's affected me personally. When we were last year, my wife and I decided we're going to go to Disney. But before we went, we had scheduled up way in advance. And then my wife had to have foot surgery. Well, I don't know if you've ever been to Disney before, but it's harder to do that when you have one bum foot. And so what we ended up doing was she would rent a scooter and we'd she would drive around the park and I would walk next to her. Well, you see things from a different perspective when you do that. For instance, it's harder to see things. Things are designed for people who are standing up. But when you're sitting down on a scooter, you have a different height level. When you go to a shop, a souvenir shop, there's things on shelves that are hard to reach or almost unreachable because of the fact that you're sitting down. Now, when it comes to even navigating those shops or navigating the food stalls, whatever, whenever you have tight spaces where lots of people are bunched in together, it's very difficult to bring a very large scooter into that spot. So even when you are going into a say a ride, you have to think about where do I park the scooter? How do I get back to this when I get off the ride? So even if you go right up to the ride, which Disney is very well laid out for people who have a scooter or other disability that makes them uh more difficult to just walk around. So they have great setups to that. But when you get on that ride, you have to think about okay, if I can walk a little bit, I can go and do this. But if I can't walk very much, how do I get on the ride? And then how do I make sure I can get back to my scooter? Because usually you get off on a different side of the ride. And how do you do that? Well, so there's a lot of things to think about, and you start to realize, hey, I've got a new perspective because I've never done this before. Because up until that point, my wife and I just walked everywhere. And so whenever we go to an amusement park or other areas, we just walk. And now we have a new perspective on oh, these are the things that make life easier, or these are the things that make life more difficult because of that perspective. And that's one of the things that I have found over the years has been greatly beneficial to me is to have more perspective, to have the perspectives of people that I just don't have. I have a narrow focus and a narrow view of my life because that's all I've experienced. But the more I experience and the more I am exposed to others who have different experiences than me, it allows for a broader viewpoint. So I found it very, very helpful. Now, when I worked as an IT director for a college, I kind of jokingly said that I was the diversity department because it just kind of worked out this way. But I had employees from South Africa, Brazil, Ireland, England, Nigeria, and Italy, as well as the US. So we had a very diverse perspective in our office. And it really opened my eyes to a lot of things I hadn't thought about before. And it changed how I viewed help desk. It changed how I viewed working with people, it changed how I viewed how we created materials and websites and other things because of that diverse perspective. A simple and kind of silly one was when it came time for the World Cup. And this is one of those things where I was not aware. It was not something I was necessarily a fan of. I didn't think about it because at the time I wasn't that into soccer. Now, since then, I love the World Cup. But when it came time to do something in the office, I'm like, okay, you know, here's this big project you want to do. And my employees are like, uh, hey, hold on. Um, I'll be taking some of this time off. And we're not going to be around the office. And I'm like, why is no one want to be in the office right now? Well, it's because the World Cup's being played. It's only played every four years. And this is a big deal. And I tell you what, most of the countries I mentioned are big World Cup players. And so they had, you know, they're big fans of the national team. And so we figured that out and worked together. And it it changed my perspective on when to do projects and, you know, under have a better understanding of who I'm working with. So it's a simple example, but there's a lot of things that came out of working with that group that I learned because I was interacting with people that weren't just like me. I figured out that how my actions and words are perceived can be different depending on what I say and do. And some things that I think are no big deal kind of are to them. And I need to learn how to change in order to have that broader perspective. Now, what does this mean when it comes to being a software developer? Why does it matter? Yeah, okay, okay, having a broader perspective sounds great, but does it actually impact anything? Well, absolutely it does. Let's come and talk about software development itself. If you create software and you have no perspective on what it's like to be blind, well, then you might not create something that is useful to a blind person, which means you cut out that part of the audience. So when it comes to being on a website, if you don't optimize your website for screen reader access, well, you're taking out an entire portion of the web that that can no longer use your site because it's not accessible. It's like building a building with just steps and no ramp. So you need to make sure you think about that and it's really helpful if you can interact with a person who is blind, who can say, here's the big struggles I have. Because you might be able to solve some of those problems very, very easily if you just know about them. Let's talk about the next one. If a person is deaf. Well, if your software has a sound or has something that is the only way you know about something, that's kind of a problem. You know, if you have a timer, the only way you know that went off is because of the ringing. Well, if you can't hear it, that eliminates that group of people. So being able to have another way of saying the timer is done, a flashing screen or something else, is very important. Having interactivity with people like that who can bring that perspective to your team is important. Uh, one that is not exactly a disability. It's no reliable Wi-Fi. Okay, man, that's a disability, it feels like at least. Um, this is not just something for, you know, if you're out in the middle of nowhere. I have been in cities where there's no reliable Wi-Fi because of the fact that they're so busy, they're so clogged, and there's so many Wi-Fi signals that are competing that if you don't have the best signal in your area, then you don't have access to the Wi-Fi. So having no reliable Wi-Fi is a big deal. If you go to a different country, maybe you're maybe you're traveling on a train, whatever it is, you might not have access to reliable Wi-Fi. So having that perspective and realizing, oh, that's a problem is important. Or let's be even more general, what if you don't have fast internet? So when we are building our website, the IMTimCorey.com website. And that's we built that in-house. We we plan for a lot of these things. But I was trying to optimize it and trying to make it be as fast and as efficient as possible. But one of the things that I have is fast internet. Now it's not the fastest, it's still about uh 50 megabit. That's because I'm in the country and we have to use a microwave repeater in order to get our internet. We can't get faster than that. But it's fast enough. But we were making some decisions about images, and we wanted the most crisp and clear images possible. And so we decided, you know what, that's a compromise. We had to make these images bigger, the files bigger, in order to have that crisp and clear image. And then I went and had my oil changed. And while I was waiting for my truck to be done, having the oil changed, I sat at the um at the business and I got on their Wi-Fi, which was atrocious. Their Wi-Fi was so slow. And so I was working on our website and it was taking multiple seconds for the website to load. And I'm like, this is unacceptable. But the only way I figured that out, and the only way I say, hey, we need to make a change, is because I had a different experience. I had a different perspective. And if I hadn't gone there and done that, I wouldn't have had that experience. Now, what I'm saying here is diversity is important. It does not always mean you have to have or know or hire a person to do that. However, people have lots of different experiences they can bring to the table. And so if you have a person that says, hey, you know, I've I've worked with no Wi-Fi or little Wi-Fi, and this is what happens, that can be really helpful. Now, there's many others. Uh person's nomadic. You know, one of the things that people often say is, Well, I need to have your home address. Well, what if you don't have one? How does that work? Well, you need to know. What if you've lived in a city and or lived in the country? There are different perspectives. What if you've lived outside the US? Or what if you don't speak English as your primary language? Or what if your language that you're going to be working with is right to left instead of left to right? What if the person's illiterate? There's so many different perspectives. And so what I would encourage you is the bottom line is people who are just like you are comfortable. They're comfortably around because you have the same experiences, you have the same many values or perspectives, and it just feels comfortable. But they don't push you to grow beyond yourself. People who are different from you and from each other allow you to see beyond your narrow view of the world. It's important. As software developers, we have to see beyond our narrow view. Because by doing so, we can help more of an audience, we can reach more of an audience, we can be a better benefit to more of our audience. So I would encourage you when you think about designing a team, when you think about hiring somebody, when you think about just who you are as a team, that you try to be as diverse as possible, have as many perspectives as possible, and don't just get comfortable with people that act the same as you, talk the same as you, and think the same as you. Broaden your perspective and you will create better software. Thanks for watching. And as always, I am Tim Corey.

SPEAKER_01 15:50

Thank you for joining us for this episode of Def Questions. Tim is committed to making it easier for you to become a developer. If you would like to help make more content like this possible, please like, subscribe, rate, and share Dev Questions. You can also send your questions to questions at IamTimcorey.com. Until next time, remember, you are too smart and your time too valuable to waste it making all the mistakes Tim did. When you're ready to learn to think and code like a professional developer, head over to imtimcore.com and enroll in a course.