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Celebrating and Improving the Office of Institutional Equity Reporting Form
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Background
The Office of Institutional Equity (OIE) exists to support the values and policies of Montana State University and to ensure compliance with legal mandates concerning discrimination. The office is dedicated to protecting students and employees from discrimination and lack of opportunity based on a variety of categories including, race, sex, gender, sexual orientation, age, disability, and veteran status. The office serves as the central location for all reports regarding discrimination and is responsible for leading investigations into these reports.
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Why is this Necessary?
Uphold State and Federal Mandates
The scope of this office has grown from Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, to include, Titles IV, VI, and VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964; 34 C.F.R. pt. 100; Title IX; 28 C.F.R. pt. 54 and 34 C.F.R. pt. 106; Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act; 34 C.F.R. pt. 104; Age Discrimination Act of 1975; 34 C.F.R. pt. 110; and Titles I and II of the Americans with Disabilities Act; 28 C.F.R. pt. 35; Montana Human Rights Act and Governmental Code of Fair Practices, Title 49, Montana Code Annotated
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How do I make a report?
Watch the video for a walk-through of the online reporting form. Also, see our interview with OIE Director Emily Stark in the Blog portion of this site, or at the bottom of this page.
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Personas of Users
The members of the interaction design team are a good example of a lead, general, and extreme users.
Lead User: Monika Kwapisz
Age: 22
Work: Student Researcher
Goals: Earn an engineering degree and enjoy their time at MSU.
Frustrations: Things that could be done better, but aren't.
Motivations: Creating a more inclusive future.
Bio: Monika is an engineering student and leader in the campus LGBTQ community. They have connections with various institutional and student groups focused on diversity and inclusion.
General User: John Corbett
Age: 27
Work: Student & Insight Facilitator
Goals: Complete undergraduate degree and contribute to society
Frustrations: When problems are not approached holistically
Motivations: Making a world that works better for everyone
Bio: John is an engineering student at Montana State University. He is someone who would report harassment or discrimination if he witnessed it or was the victim of it.
Extreme User: Jiahui Ma
Age: 27
Work: International Student
Goals: Have a happy study experience!
Frustrations: Don't know who I can talk with when the bad thing happens.
Motivations: Design for all!
Bio: J is an international student. English is not her first language. With cultural differences, she doesn't know she can report discrimination and harassment events to the Office of Institution Equity. She also has difficulty to understand and fill out the report form.
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Designed for Interaction
"Interaction design isn't only about fixing problems; it's also about invention, about creating new products, and by doing so, making the world a better place to live." - Dan Saffer
The personas above offer a user-centered approach to the OIE online reporting form. Every type of user and every individual has preferences for how they want to interact with the form, but ultimately the goal is for everyone to feel like they are taken seriously. From an activity-centered design approach the reporting form fulfills its purpose. Interaction design connects people through products. In an interview with Emily Stark, OIE director, she said, “each piece of information is important.” It is a direct transfer of knowledge. She also offers insight on the relationship between interaction design and inclusive design. About half the people that report incidents do so online and half by other means. This fact can be criticized as a failing of the form to capture every user, but it can be celebrated that the OIE offers options for everyone. Finally interaction design and social justice are interrelated because the reporting form is an entry point people interact with to access a campus-wide system for social justice.
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Why inclusive design?
“Inclusive design doesn’t mean you’re designing one thing for all people. You’re designing a diversity of ways to participate so everyone has a sense of belonging.” – Susan Goltsman
The Office of Institutional Equity supports the University’s goals by promoting an inclusive, diverse and supportive environment for external members of the campus community and our employees and students to excel regardless of their identities. The office has cooperated with different departments to provide a multi-faceted approach to reach this goal. There are multiple ways that people can report an incident, like email, online form, and phone call, which provides different ways for people to participate.
However, for users who are blind, or have language and culture barriers, there are some difficulties for them to use this report system. A phone number has been provided in the online form, which is a good way for the blind people to report an incident. But if more diversified ways, like voice robot or audio reader, can be provided in this report system, the difficulties to interact with it can be decreased.
The report itself is presented in a professional and formal style. The top part of the form states types of incidents that can be reported by this form with a linked page to explain what they are. For people with different culture background or language barrier, it is time-consuming to digest this important information. If more videos or images can be applied to show these formal terms, the reporting system can remove barriers for users and add more creativity. To encourage more people using the online report system, the system itself should ensure a user-friendly experience for all types of users.
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Addressing Social Justice
“Genuine equality means not treating everyone the same, but attending equally to everyone’s different needs.” - Terry Eagleton
The core purpose of the incident reporting form is to promote and maintain social justice. In this context, social justice is about fostering an environment that serves everyone equally. Whether they are a student, staff or faculty, no one should be made to feel unwelcome or unsafe, and everyone should have the same access to resources and opportunity. For it to be successful in these endeavors it needs to be designed inclusively and facilitate interaction. Because of the nature of the content being reported, it is certainly a challenge to facilitate enjoyable interactions. However, in its current state the reporting form succeeds by making the process as simple and painless as possible. The structure of the form where only a few categories are mandatory, allows the reporter to communicate their grievances to the extent that they feel comfortable doing so. The simple aesthetic design and straightforward language conveys a sense of professionalism to the user. The result of these design decisions is that the user feels valued and validated, which is extremely important for promoting social justice, especially because users are reporting as a direct result of witnessing or experiencing marginalization. From the interview conducted with Program Director Emily Stark, we learned that accommodations are available to users who are unable to fill out the form online. These accommodations include translators for non-English speakers and in-person or over the phone interviews for those that need it. However, these resources are only available to those who decide to contact the office and are not mentioned in the form. The office should facilitate ways for people to report anonymously while taking advantage of alternative reporting methods. In order to truly promote social justice, the incident reporting form needs to ensure that all potential users have the opportunity to take advantage of this resource.
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In order for the incident reporting form to function effectively it must operate at the intersection of Inclusive Design, Social Justice, and Interaction Design. By addressing social justice, everyone will have an opportunity to take advantage of this reporting system at MSU. This requires the reporting system to be designed for users of varying backgrounds and abilities in order to provide equal access to every user. In this case they are prepared to provide equal access resources, but could do a better job of letting extreme users know about the alternative reporting methods. Inclusive design can help to ensure that a variety of users get access to the system and enjoy its service. Thus, inclusive design is an effective design method to carry out the social justice goal for the Office of Institutional Equity. Interaction design, has been implemented in the structure of the reporting system to promote social justice in a more user-friendly way for users. Therefore, interactive design, inclusive design and social justice can and should be interwoven within the reporting system to ensure that it is desired system that everyone will benefit from.
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