New Publication!

We are proud to share our new implementation guide, Design from the Margins: A Methodology to De-weaponize Tech.

Tech’s trajectory is not an inevitability. Our collective power lies in our imagination for better futures and requires us to disrupt and block the well-worn paths of structural injustice. The most powerful methods to achieve this reality – and the most pragmatic – come from the knowledge and experience of those who are the most impacted. They have been navigating and disrupting institutional harm for years.

This guide enables people involved in the design and deployment of technology — from engineers to product managers, policy teams to those who procure tech for their organizations — to implement the Design From the Margins (DFM) methodology.

It outlines, step-by-step, how to learn about and harness those methods, using the DFM methodology. It builds on a decade of DFM practice that has already resulted in popular and impactful new features at companies like Grindr, Signal, WhatsApp and more. It also includes recent interviews with decentered people, advocates, and technologists.

The goal? To support you in ensuring the work you do serves shared values of justice and human rights towards technology built for people, not power.

If you work somewhere where sharing this document might be risky or difficult due to policing and scrutiny on work related to policing, human rights, civil rights, and diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI), let us know via the contact form and we can send you an alternative PDF with an inconspicuous cover.

The De|Center will soon publish a visual “journey map” companion to this implementation guide, along with additional in-depth materials providing case studies and tech-facilitated abuse documentation.