visual representation of equity

10 Emerging Artists Share What Systemic Equality Means to Them

A future that roots out injustice, challenges our racist institutions, and ensures that every person can achieve their highest potential, unhampered by structural and institutional racism. We asked them to be bold in envisioning this reimagining of systems: from bridging the racial wealth gap, to reconciling our past, to ensuring our future expands access for all and empowers all communities. Their work is inspired by these results. Accompanying each piece is a personal statement from the artist about the world they envision on issues such as student debt, fair housing, voting rights, and more.

Greg Dubois

“A large step towards systemic equality is ensuring that high speed internet access is expanded out to the millions of people of color who don’t have access to it. My graphic is an idealistic portrayal of an America in which that basic necessity is provided to all — giving everyone real access to education, health care, financial growth, governmental support systems, and overall connections that can uplift and empower those who’ve been held back from years of systemic inequality.”

Greg is an award winning Haitian-Canadian visual designer, who started his design journey over 10 years ago. His passion for visual storytelling drives him to constantly create art and designs that weave together colors, textures, patterns, and typography to craft his vision. Greg hopes that his work, if nothing else, captivates, inspires, and provides insight to who he is and what he believes in.

Sophia Zarders

The message is clear: this country was built on the thankless hard work and immense suffering of our ancestors. We demand reparations.

“The intersections of race, history, and ancestry have frequently been at the core of my work. The generational tradition of storytelling, looking through old photos and mapping the family tree have been powerful tools in discovering and understanding my ancestry and America’s history. ‘Demand Reparations’ is a continuation of these themes by conveying a shared history of Black and Indigenous communities. Though none of the figures depicted are based on anyone in particular, I wanted to create a specific yet familiar familial lineage that viewers could identify with in some aspect. The message is clear: this country was built on the thankless hard work and immense suffering of our ancestors. We demand reparations.”

Sophia Zarders (she/they) is an illustrator, comic artist, and independent zine publisher from Long Beach, California. Their work has been published by HarperCollins, The Nation, PRISM, Fiyah Literary Magazine and Razorcake Magazine. They’ve been commissioned by the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights, SaveArtSpace, Forward Together, and the Arts Council of Long Beach. In 2018, they exhibited their first solo show at Somos Gallery in Berlin, Germany. Sophia is currently pursuing their MFA in Visual Art from Emily Carr University of Art & Design in Vancouver, British Columbia.

Jade Orlando

“I imagine inequality and racism as weeds with roots burrowing deep into our country’s foundation. This piece highlights a future where we dig out and destroy the roots of injustice, allowing a more beautiful country to bloom for every American.”

Jade Orlando is a Black biracial illustrator working in Atlanta, Georgia. Her illustrations are featured in books such as Generation Brave, Hey You! and the Activists Assemble series. In addition to book illustration, her art can be found on products ranging from greeting cards to calendars. Jade lives with her husband, four cats, and a Greyhound named Petra. When she’s not illustrating, you can usually find her curled up with her pets and a really good book.

“Equity can be configured when accessibility is finally given. People have the human right to obtain and experience the freedom they have been promised.

Accessibility dismantles the pillars that barricade our communities from experiencing progression and healing.

Accessibility dismantles the pillars that barricade our communities from experiencing progression and healing. Beyond the endless cycle of disconnection, people can finally see their lives at true value and being to see communities flourish. This change would offer us the opportunity to build various aspirations and resources to secure a sturdier foundation for everyone.”

Memphis-native illustrator and designer Mia Saine is a non-binary Black creative seeking to share a more positive, inclusive narrative. Saine's colorful, minimal digital illustrations strive to normalize and amplify minorities’ voices and experiences. Saine triumphs the constant cycle of injustice, tropes, and stereotypes by showcasing minorities, especially Black individuals, embracing their self-empowerment and happiness.

Kahlief Steele

“Do my loved ones truly see me? Do they hear me? Do they feel me? Caught in the crossfire between my white family and friends and my Blackness, I often feel lost in the void.

This work is a natural way for me to communicate these sentiments. Harsh lines and contrast show the differences we have, but the shared range of values recognize that reconciliation is still within reach. The only colors in the piece, green and red, hearken back to our roots in the Pan-African flag. Texture bursts throughout, indicating the gritty nature of the work we’ve done and have yet to do.

Taking broken fragments and piecing them together to make something captivating, I show that the sometimes confused and complicated feelings we have are valid and worthy of being heard.”

Graduating in 2015 from Missouri Southern State University with a BFA in graphic design, Kahlief Steele finds ways to use his design skills to solve problems for a variety of clients, including large businesses, nonprofits, friends, and family. Having been raised by a white family, he has a deep longing for knowledge about his heritage. As such, every February, he amasses a trove of information related to Black History and publishes art to educate those who are unfamiliar. In the summer following the murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and Ahmaud Arbery, he hosted a Q+A session to foster conversation with those who were unsure of the next steps to take. He continues to create work that inspires others to greater understanding and to take action.

Nadia Fisher

“I created this piece to emphasize the importance of protecting voting rights for everyone. I wanted to illustrate something to show that in order to fight democracy and equity, we have to protect voting rights. The stars in the background represent the states, as they are the ones that are currently trying to pass laws, at an alarming rate, to suppress voting rights, and the flag represents the rights that we are trying to protect and expand.”

Nadia Fisher is a children’s book and freelance illustrator based out of Washington, D.C. striving to normalize inclusion in children’s books and the illustration world. A lot of her art focuses on social justice, and Nadia hopes to encourage people to find their voice and show up for others.

Daniella Uche-Oji

“I created a design about the Tulsa Race Massacre. There was a thriving Black community in the U.S.! There was a successful Black community in the U.S. but, of course because, ‘Black people aren’t supposed to own anything’ they didn't let it survive. This is another incident I feel should have been taught in schools abroad, especially African countries, but unfortunately wasn’t for whatever reason — I personally never learned about it until I moved here. Despite all that has happened to all Black people around the world, be it slavery or colonization, there has always been a dire need to take things away from us. Things that we have ‘owned;’ natural resources on our land, and this same mindset caused the Greenwood District of Tulsa, Oklahoma to be raided and destroyed for NO REASON AT ALL.”

Daniella Uche-Oji is a designer and storyteller based in Los Angeles, California. She was born in Houston, Texas and raised in Lagos, Nigeria. Her obsession for storytelling and technology drove her to becoming a designer. She is skilled at graphic and motion designs that tell stories she didn't get to hear earlier in her life. Her designs are largely inspired by culture, music, fashion, and technology.

“What would our society look like for Black and Indigenous people of color if systemic racism no longer thrived? Drawing from a video recording of Nina Simone back in 1968 being asked ‘what is freedom to you?’ the artist was inspired to convey her response through the medium of digital collage. Simone states that freedom to her meant ‘absolutely no fear!’ With this piece, the artist explores what true freedom would look like for her people when absolutely nothing is hindering us, including fear, and we are able to live our truly authentic lives.”

With this piece, the artist explores what true freedom would look like for her people when absolutely nothing is hindering us, including fear.

Alexa Lima is an interdisciplinary artist who resides in Marietta, Georgia with her husband, two step-kids, a dog named Zelda, and a cat named Benny. Creating movement through the lens of minimalism is the constant idea that she aims to convey through her work, and centers her design ethos around illuminating that which has been cast aside throughout time. Currently, she is running Ulterior Studio, self-publishing short-run zines, and trying not to consume all the pastries, all the time.

Justine Swindell

“This illustration depicts the collaboration it takes across policymakers, institutions, and individuals to close the racial wealth gap. There are many symbolic references including a nod to the many pins and bumper stickers that surface during social movements. The image is layered on a flat black and white divide with all-American denim on both sides. On the denim jacket there are several pins and patches highlighting a few solutions. Lastly, the closure of the jacket represents possibility for a better future, a real and tangible shift to equal opportunity for all.”

Justine Swindell is a multidisciplinary artist based in Washington D.C. In her neo-pop style she tells visual stories of city life, cultural identity, and social change.

Nicole Abrokwa

“This piece represents the fear and overwhelming feeling of having student debt. It’s like being lost at sea, helpless with nothing supporting you but your cap. A life preserver enters the scene literally saving you, because at this point student loans are loans paid off for life.”

Nicole Abrokwa is a multidisciplinary artist. Her work pulls from her life experiences, whether that be her Ghanaian heritage, her childhood memories, or everyday life. Her work puts focus on human emotions and capturing moments of closeness. Over the years, Nicole has worked on honing her skills in various mediums ranging from digital animations to traditional paintings. When not creating, you can find her unsuccessfully attempting to grow tomatoes and starting another book only for it to be left unfinished.

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Some Reflections on an Illustration of Equality vs Equity

ATTENTION FRIENDS! Can you use the equality vs equity illustration in your book/video/presentation/etc?

Yes! You do not need written permission to reproduce the work. Read below for information on the  license  under which the illustrations are released.

In late 2015, Danielle and I collaborated with our friend and colleague, Angus Maguire , to produce the above adaptation of an old favorite (original blog post here ). In the wake of the virality of the graphic on our social media channels, the three of us wanted to share a little of what we’ve been thinking since we released it into the wilds of the Internet a little over a month ago. – Lawrence

Lawrence: In all honesty, frustration was a primary driver of my interest in this project. I have seen this graphic in 15+ presentations and yet every time it seemed to be more pixelated than the last. I wanted our practitioners (and the world) to have a higher quality tool.

Angus: Collaborating with IISC on this little project was great. It wasn’t a complex project brief: essentially we set out to improve on the presentation of an internet classic. For me, it started as a great chance to experiment with a new illustration workflow – this is the first time I’ve done a cartoon like this digitally, start-to-finish. Software and hardware tools are now at a point where that’s possible for me, and I’m just getting started on the possibilities for experimentation and iteration.

Danielle: This image is popular because it creates an opening for more conversation. What works about it is that there are multiple points of entry. For the person who has never thought about equality or equity, they can see there is a difference, and begin to shift their thinking.

Angus: My design and illustration work involves amplifying marginalized voices and communities, and creating visuals that support social justice messages. But this project had a twist. Normally, I’m thinking about diversity and specificity in terms of identity: raising up our movements’ many participants’ and leaders’ identities. But we chose to dampen that urge here, to make sure the message remained clear – that the variables at play were the resources as represented by the crates and the access dictated by the character’s height. The result, I think, remains clear. But it also seems to trigger a lot of imagination, as viewers can immediately iterate on the basic meaning, either through critique, or by expanding the basic set pieces to illustrate other related concepts. That’s what makes the project feel the most successful to me: the way it starts conversations.

Lawrence: I was (and still am) torn about the aesthetic identity of the characters in the cartoon. In the original, the three main characters are light-skinned (arguably, white) and the racial identities of the baseball players is unknown. For a few days during the production process, we batted around different identity options (gender, skin tone, body size, sport/game/event depicted).

In the end, my advocacy was to just darken the skin tone of the characters for two reasons. 1. Whenever other changes came up, they complicated and distracted from the graphic’s core message. 2. Because not everyone in the world is white and sometimes it’s just nice (word choice?) to see people of color represented. I still stand by my original advocacy to darken the skin tone of the characters because the purpose of the cartoon is to quickly communicate the difference between equality and equity. And yet, I think there is still something to be worked out around the identity of the characters.

Danielle And as many of our blog readers commented, there are 101 ways to portray the setting, character identities, and question whether or not equity is a bold enough frame. Audiences have been imagining who is inside the stadium, why the characters on boxes are outside, and details about the character’s lives that can’t actually be discerned by the facts in the image. This is what people do – fill in the gaps with their beliefs, questions, fears, and hopes.

Lawrence:  If the identity of the characters creates a psychic block that prevents a viewer from getting the meaning, that’s a problem. We’ve also heard that making the characters have darker skin reinforces that people of color are freeloaders. That’s more problematic for me than having (yet another) thing centered on characters perceived to be white. Maybe we’ll find a way to remedy that some time in the future…

Danielle: Like many things that become popular, this illustration simplifies the matter. Could any single frame, digestible at a glance, truly engage the whole issue? Since January, 2016, this image has provoked at least 60,000 conversations about equity that may never have occurred, and who knows how many the original rendition did before that. It demonstrates that a simplified message can open up into a complex conversation.

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• Illustrating Equality VS Equity ATTENTION FRIENDS! Can you use the equality vs equity illustration in your book/video/presentation/etc? Yes! You do not need written permission to reproduce the work. Read below for information on the license under which the illustrations are released. IISC...
• Equality vs Equity: The gift that keeps on giving ATTENTION FRIENDS! Can you use the equality vs equity illustration in your book/video/presentation/etc? Yes! You do not need written permission to reproduce the work. Read below for information on the license under which the illustrations are...
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Hi Danielle and Lawrence,

I would LOVE for you to read this blog by Dr Aasha Abdill and for the three of you to have a conversation (which we can read) about this graphic. I found Dr. A’s analysis profound and it has shifted my understanding and use of the graphic (confess I have shared via social media)

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/problem-image-its-what-you-think-insidiousness-implicit-abdill?trk=pulse-det-nav_art

Happy to connect the three of you.

Some of us at IISC were actually chatting about Dr. Abdill’s piece just last week. A connection would be great! Feel free to connect us via our email addresses: [email protected] and [email protected] .

Looking forward!

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“equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the united states or by any state on account of sex.”.

Dissecting the famous equity/equality illustration by Angus Maguire

EQUALITY — If you are in the social justice space, you may be familiar with the powerful illustration by Angus Maguire which depicts the difference between equality and equity, which are often used interchangeably. This post covers why they are vastly different. Visual representations often possess a remarkable ability to convey complex concepts with simplicity and impact.

Through its thought-provoking design, this graphic sheds light on the crucial distinction between equity and equality, emphasizing the need for fairness and inclusivity in our society.

Together, let’s explore its message, significance, and the broader implications it holds for creating a more just and inclusive world.

Understanding The Graphic

At first glance, Maguire’s Equity/Equality graphic presents a powerful juxtaposition of three individuals of different heights standing on boxes, each striving to watch a baseball game over a fence. The three boxes symbolize the concepts of equity and equality, while the individuals represent diverse groups within society. The fence represents the barriers and obstacles that hinder individuals from fully participating and benefiting from society’s resources.

Addressing Surface-level Inequality

On the left side of the illustration, the size of the box portrays the principle of equality. “ All three of you get the same box and therefore you are equal. ” Given an identical-sized box suggests that everyone receives the same resources or opportunities.

However, the fence remains a significant obstacle for the shortest individual, whose view is still obstructed despite the box (or “equal opportunity”) . This highlights the inherent limitations of a purely equal distribution, as it fails to address underlying disparities and the unique needs of individuals or communities.

Often times we hear “but everyone is equal, has equal rights, or has access to the same opportunities. Unfortunately, this is not only incorrect but this language neglects to acknowledge that not everyone has the same set of challenges ( find further examples in this post ).

The Power of Fairness

In contrast, the right side of the illustration represents equity. In this scenario, the boxes are adjusted to accommodate the varying heights of the individuals. By providing support tailored to their specific needs , the graphic demonstrates how concepts of equity allows each person to overcome the barrier and enjoy an unobstructed view of the game.

This concept of fairness acknowledges and actively addresses systemic inequalities , ensuring that all individuals have equal access to opportunities, resources, and support .

In our previous blog post on the power of equality in America , we review all the ways society benefits when everyone has a seat ( of appropriate height ) at the table. We encourage you to consider the ways you can “pull up a chair” for everyone in your community!

Adaptation of Original Illustration

While the original illustration by Maguire took the world by storm, some saw how the equity depiction could be enhanced. The following adaptation goes beyond equity and portrays the ultimate goal of inclusivity and justice.

At the furthest end of the illustration, the fence is removed altogether, enabling everyone to enjoy the game without barriers. This powerful image emphasizes the importance of dismantling structural and societal barriers that disproportionately affects marginalized communities.

It encourages us to create an environment where equity is the foundation, ultimately leading to a just and inclusive society.

Tying It All Together

Maguire’s equity/equality illustration serves as a reminder that equality alone is not enough to achieve justice and inclusivity . By highlighting the significance of equity, the visual prompts us to recognize and address the unique needs and barriers faced by individuals or communities with diverse backgrounds and unique challenges.

It urges us to reimagine systems, policies, and practices that perpetuate inequity, advocating for fair distribution of resources and tailored support to uplift historically marginalized communities.

Moreover, the visual illustration sparks conversations about the importance of breaking down barriers and creating an inclusive society. It compels us to challenge our assumptions and biases, fostering empathy and understanding towards those who face different obstacles in their pursuit of a fulfilling life.

By embracing the principles of equity, we can work towards dismantling systemic injustices and creating a world where everyone has equal opportunities to thrive.

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Are Your Data Visualizations Racist?

Three ways to be more equitable and inclusive with your data and data visualizations.

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By Alice Feng & Jonathan Schwabish Dec. 2, 2021

Through rigorous, data-based analysis, researchers and analysts can add to our understanding of societal shortcomings and point toward evidence-based solutions. But carelessly collecting and communicating data can lead to analyses and visualizations that have an outsized capacity to mislead, misrepresent, and harm communities already experiencing inequity and discrimination.

To unlock the full potential of data, researchers and analysts must consider and apply equity at every step of the research process. Ensuring responsible data collection, representing the communities surveyed accurately, and incorporating community input whenever possible will lead to more equitable data analyses and visualizations. Although there is no one-size-fits-all approach to working with data, for researchers to truly do no harm, they must build their work on a foundation of empathy.

In our recent report, Do No Harm Guide: Applying Equity Awareness in Data Visualization , we focus on how data practitioners can approach their work through a lens of diversity, equity, and inclusion. To create this report, we conducted more than a dozen interviews with nearly 20 people who work with data to hear how they approach inclusivity. In those interviews, we heard time and time again that demonstrating empathy for the people and communities you are focusing on and communicating with should be the guiding light for those working with data. Journalist Kim Bui succinctly captured how researchers and analysts can apply empathy, saying: “If I were one of the data points on this visualization, would I feel offended?”

We do not want to prescribe what to do or not do, but rather encourage thoughtfulness in how analysts work with and present their data. As we consider the use of words, colors, icons, and more in our data visualizations, asking whether we would be offended makes for a good checkpoint.

Are you enjoying this article? Read more like this, plus SSIR's full archive of content, when you subscribe .

Here, we detail three ways you can make your data analysis and communication more equitable and inclusive.

Use Inclusive, People-First Language

Titles, text, and labels are among the first things readers scan when encountering a chart and present an important opportunity to set a foundation of equity and inclusion. Researchers and practitioners should name forces of oppression such as racism directly in the chart title and subtitles.

Additionally, we should strive to use people-first language and reference people’s experiences, not language that dehumanizes or references skin color and static descriptions. For example, write “Black People,” “people with disabilities,” and “incarcerated people” rather than “Black,” “disabled,” or “inmates.”

Using non-inclusive or dehumanizing language in data visualizations can lead to othering groups of people or implying one group is the “norm.” A June 2020 interactive Tableau dashboard that showed the relationship between race and poverty in every county of the US gives one example of how non-inclusive language can be harmful. The original data labels—“More Black” and “More Poverty”—are not inclusive of different groups and can imply these groups are lesser.

Here, considering empathy could have helped the data practitioners be more inclusive. A more inclusive way to label the legend might have been “Larger Proportion of the Black Population” and “Larger Proportion of People in Poverty” (the author of the visualization later changed “More Black” to “Larger Black Population,” and we are grateful the author provided us with permission to include this example here). Although these labels are longer and might not fit as nicely, they are more inclusive and respectful of people being represented in the data. When creating a visualization, think about how you would like to be described or represented with words.

Order Data Purposefully

Often, researchers and analysts give little thought to how they present estimates in charts, graphs, tables, and diagrams. Many of the large demographic surveys conducted in the US order race starting with “white” and “Black” as the first two options. Similarly, “male” and “female” are far too often the only options provided to answer questions about gender. The groups that data researchers choose to show in the first row of a table or the first bar in a graph can affect how readers perceive their relationship. Always starting with “white” or “men”—as in this example table from an April 2021 report from the US Census Bureau —can make these groups appear as the default and give them outsized importance.

Instead of using the ordering of groups provided in the data, consider some alternative presentation options:

• Does your study focus on a particular community? If it does, present that group first.
• Is there a particular argument or story you are trying to tell? If so, order your results to reflect that argument.
• Can the groups be ordered by their quantitative relationship, either in ascending or descending magnitude? Can the groups be sorted alphabetically, by population size, or sample size (weighted or unweighted)? Don’t let the underlying data make these decisions for you. Instead, make conscious, purposeful choices to present your data through an inclusive, equitable lens.

Choose Colors With Care

Good color palettes for data visualization should, at minimum, meet basic accessibility guidelines and offer sufficient contrast for readers with vision difficulties. Going beyond accessibility, color choices should also avoid reinforcing gender or racial stereotypes, such as baby pink and baby blue to represent women and men or colors associated with skin tones or racial stereotypes (e.g., black to represent Black people or yellow to represent Asian people).

The color palette below originally appeared in a June 2020 version of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Office of the Provost’s “ Diversity Dashboard ,” which enabled users to explore the demographic characteristics of the school’s students, faculty, and staff. The dashboard represented six racial groups with shades of red, the “international” and “unknown” groups with two shades of gray, and only the “white” group with blue.

This color palette presents at least two problems. First, by using shades of red to represent the six groups of students of color, the palette creates a visual divide that pits students of color against white students. Second, graduated color palettes generally show greater or higher values in darker colors and smaller or lower values in lighter colors. By using a graduated color palette, the dashboard appears to suggest that “Black or African American” students are somehow “more” or “higher” than students who identify as “two or more races.”

Together, these two issues create an effect where students who identify as “white” are moved to the foreground and highlighted, as if they are the most important group and the norm to which all other groups should be compared. Instead, a color palette with nine distinct hues or a different data visualization type altogether would do a better job of applying a racially equitable lens.

Centering Empathy

Here and in our longer report , we have laid out many recommendations and guidelines that people and organizations can consider to take a more equitable and inclusive view of data and data visualizations. We don’t view these topic areas or even the suggested alternatives as ironclad rules. Instead, we see these principles as a starting point for people to think more carefully and critically about how to embrace inclusion throughout the pipeline of data creation, analysis, and communication.

In your own reports, blog posts, dashboards, and visualizations, consider how you would want to be represented. Do your color choices communicate equity? Are your icons respectful and diverse? Approaching the process of data analysis and communication through an equitable and inclusive lens will ultimately create a better society for everyone.

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Read more stories by Alice Feng & Jonathan Schwabish .

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Applying Racial Equity Awareness in Data Visualization

The following post is a summarized version of the article accepted to the  2020 Visualization for Communication workshop  as part of the 2020 IEEE VIS conference to be held in October 2020. The full paper has been published as an OSF Preprint and can be accessed  here .

The Urban Institute’s mission is to open minds, shape decisions, and offer solutions. To advance that mission, we must think intentionally about how we can learn from and speak to audiences who reflect the rich diversity of America’s communities, and we must foster a culture where employees from different backgrounds and perspectives enjoy mutual respect, inclusivity, and collegiality.

For the past few months, we have been working on revising and updating Urban’s  Data Visualization Style Guide . In addition to reorganizing the guide and updating various style decisions, we have also been thinking critically about how we communicate data and information about the groups we study. Just as Urban has carefully considered the words we use in our written reports and platforms, we should be equally careful in how we visually present data to our readers, users, and audiences and what words we should use in and around those visuals. (We are also working on a separate section about accessibility in data visualization, which we will share at a later date.)

Although more people are thinking and writing about these issues, there hasn’t been much agreement around best practices for taking an equity lens to data visualization, especially as it applies to setting standards for entire organizations. As best we can, we have been reading a variety of posts and papers (a short list can be found below) and discussing ways we can develop a more diverse, equitable, and inclusive approach to presenting and visualizing data. We view this effort as just the beginning of our process and anticipate growing and expanding our work as we learn more and receive feedback from colleagues, partners, and readers.

To that end, we have identified eight areas in which researchers, analysts, and anyone working with data can be more inclusive in how they present their data.

Using language with a racial equity awareness.   Titles, text, and labels are among the first things readers scan  (PDF) when encountering a chart, so they present an important opportunity to apply racial equity awareness thinking. Urban researchers often rely on our organization’s guides for accessible and inclusive language for labeling and annotating graphs. Consistent with Urban style, we want our researchers to label their data using people-first language, such as “people with disabilities” rather than “disabled people.” Terms should also refer to people and not strictly to their skin color; for example, “Black people” not “Blacks.”

As just one example, in a  June 2020 project , a series of bivariate choropleth maps showed the relationship between race and poverty. In the original visualization, the labels along the legend were “More Poverty” and “More Black.” That language is not inclusive of different groups: poverty refers to an experience not a static description and “More Black” references skin color, not people. A more inclusive way to label the legend might be “Larger proportion of people experiencing poverty” and “Larger Black Population” (the author of the visualization did later change “More Black” to “Larger Black Population”).

The terms and phrases we use continue to change. In writing about terminology around and about people with disabilities,  Nicolas Steenhout  writes, “Disability language is never straightforward. It’s always nuanced. It always evolves.” That sentiment can extend to any underrepresented group, so as researchers, developers, and designers, we need to monitor the current lexicon and reflect the experiences of the people we study and the people we communicate with. Graph creators may want to consider including a footnote or endnote explaining why a particular term was used. We also encourage researchers to talk to their target audiences to give them the option to self-identify their preferred terminology.

Ordering data labels in a purposeful way.  Many of our graphs and tables include different demographic groups, ordered simply as they appear in the raw data. There is likely little thought given to  how  estimates in tables or bars in graphs or small multiples are ordered, such as “White,” “Black,” “Hispanic,” and “Other.” As graph producers, however, we should take a more active role in choosing how to order and present data values for different groups. Which group we choose to show as the first row in a table or the first bar in a graph can affect how readers perceive the relationship or hierarchy between groups; always starting with “White” or “Men” can make these groups appear as the default against which other groups should be compared, suggesting they’re the most important populations. How we choose to order may also reflect who we view as the intended audience for our visualizations. Starting with “White” or “Men” can make it seem as though those are the most important groups we are trying to communicate with. Urban does not have a universal rule that applies to all visuals, but a few issues are worth considering:

· Does your study focus on a particular community? If it does, that group should be presented first.

· Is there a particular argument or story you are trying to tell? If so, the order or presentation of results should reflect that argument.

· Is there a quantitative relationship that can guide how the groups are ordered? Can they be sorted alphabetically or by population size, sample size (weighted or unweighted), or magnitude or effect of the results?

Considering the missing groups.  It is also important to acknowledge who is and is not included in our data and charts. Many charts on race and ethnicity only show white people, Black people, and Latinx people but not smaller racial or ethnic groups. Often this is because of data limitations; in particular, small sample sizes. But even in those cases, how can researchers be more proactive to help organizations conducting surveys be more inclusive? How can we communicate to those organizations to help them conduct better surveys? Just because it may be harder to obtain data about certain groups doesn’t mean we shouldn’t still try to better understand their lives.

Similarly, charts showing breakdowns by gender often neglect nonbinary and transgender people by only presenting males and females. Again, many major surveys, especially at the federal level, do not include these groups as response options, but we should be asking ourselves how and to what extent we should note omitted groups and when. Should researchers assume readers will recognize that certain datasets treat gender as binary? How can we anticipate that assumption?

Another topic we’ve been considering is how to avoid lumping groups with few observations into the seemingly innocuous “Other” category. In some cases, the “Other” category may be necessary to achieve sufficient sample size for statistical analyses — in which case, we should ask ourselves if it is appropriate to lump these groups together (do they show the same trends in the data?) and be sure to clearly define in the notes section of the chart who is included in this category. But in other cases, we may use the “Other” category as a shortcut to make the presentation and related writing easier. Should we start considering labels besides “Other,” which can have an exclusionary connotation? Even though it might take more words, maybe we should use the appropriate name for each group in our tables, charts, and text.

In cases where data were collected about a specific group but that group was not presented separately in the chart, it may be worth listing in the chart’s notes all racial and ethnic groups included in the original dataset. This can both inform readers that data do exist for these smaller groups (even though they may be limited) and offer transparency about the chart maker’s decision about groups they included in their visualization.

Using colors with a racial equity awareness.  Urban’s color palette is consistent for people with certain color vision deficiencies, and the contrast between those colors and white and black text meet basic  accessibility guidelines . Urban does not use color palettes that reinforce gender or racial stereotypes, such as baby pink and baby blue to represent women and men. We have not set a specific standard for which Urban color refers to which gender group or racial group, although we certainly recommend that researchers avoid using colors associated with skin tones (or worse, racial stereotypes).

As an example, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Office of the Provost’s “ Diversity Dashboard ” enables users to explore demographic characteristics of the school’s students, faculty, and staff. The June 2020 version of the dashboard used three distinct hues to represent nine racial and ethnic groups. Five of the distinct race and ethnicity groups were represented with red, a similar lighter pink color for the “Two or more races” category, two shades of gray for the “International” and “Unknown” groups, and blue for the “White” group.

There are multiple problems with this design. First, the red color ramp for the five groups on the left side of the legend  others  those groups and creates a visual divide that seems to position nonwhite students against white students. Secondly, the gray colors  tend to fade to the background , which diminishes international students and students whose race or ethnicity is unknown. All of this creates an effect where the “White” category moves to the foreground and is highlighted, as if it is the most important group and the norm against which all other groups should be compared. An update to the dashboard in July 2020 partly remedied the color issues by using more hues and creating larger breaks between the now-blue color ramp.

In general, as data visualization producers, we need to be aware of how our use of colors, words, and categorizations can perpetuate or exacerbate inequities.

Using icons and shapes with a racial equity awareness.  We want to be careful and thoughtful when using icons in any data visualization. When showing groups of people, we should consider a mix of genders, races, and ethnicities. We don’t often use icons at Urban, but when we do, we should consider to whom we are presenting our results and how our icons might be perceived. We need to be conscious of how certain icons may not correspond to the content, such as an icon of a baby in a chart about child mortality.

Mis- or underrepresentation of certain groups in imagery and iconography also fails to take a racial or gender equity awareness perspective toward our data visualization work. A 2018 study by the Pew Research Center found that “men are overrepresented in online image search results across a majority of jobs examined” and that “women appear lower than men in such search results for many jobs.” This disparity continues to this day; the image on the left shows Google search results for the phrase “nurse icon,” and the image on the right shows results for the phrase “boss icon.” Notice how nearly all the images on the top are similar to images we might imagine as feminine and the images on the bottom we might traditionally consider masculine.

Data visualization creators should ensure a  variety of races and genders are depicted  when using icons and avoid icons that make inappropriate depictions of people or communities or reinforce stereotypes.

Demonstrating empathy.  One of the big challenges in visualizing data, and quantitative research in general, is the ability to help readers connect with the content. Standard graphs like bar charts, line charts, and pie charts, while informative, can abstract from the content and people being represented. Taking an empathetic view of the reader’s needs as they read or perceive information is  one step to better data communication . This kind of empathy is often couched in terms of producing specific graphs that meet the needs and expertise of our readers. But viewing empathy through a diversity, equitability, and inclusivity (DEI) lens would mean considering how the specific lived experiences and perspectives of our readers (not to mention the actual study populations) will perceive the information. As journalist  Kim Bui  wrote in 2019, “approaching stories — and people — with more empathy creates better relationships with marginalised communities, builds trust and increases diverse coverage.”

Empathy in data visualization also extends to when we use abstract shapes versus shapes that resemble people or communities, which can evoke a little more humanity. Graphics that specifically represent people — the anthropomorphizing of data graphics, or, as  Jeremy Boy and colleagues  (PDF) refer to them, “anthropographics” — is sometimes seen as a way to evoke empathy (though Boy and his coauthors do not find this to be the case; see also  Groeger ). The idea of helping readers understand the “ near and far ” — a wide lens of overall metrics or data paired with individual- or group-level data — may be a way to  help readers connect with content . The guiding principle here is to put people first and help the reader better understand and recognize the people behind the data. “One possibility,” web developer Jacob Harris wrote, “is that if your data is about people, make it extremely clear who they are or were.”

Another way to think about empathy in data visualization is whether particular chart types lend themselves to more of a human connection than others. For example, bar charts represent each data value with a single rectangle. On the other hand, unit charts and waffle charts visualize each data point using a collection of smaller individual shapes.

The former approach could be seen as more abstract, collapsing all of the people reflected in that data point into just one shape, while the latter chart type might offer more of an opportunity to connect with the subject by reminding readers of the number of people represented through the use of multiple individual shapes, particularly if each dot represents one person.

Connecting directly with people and communities and trying to better understand their lived experiences can help content producers create visualizations and tell stories that better reflect the true experiences of different people. This connection may come more naturally for journalists than for data scientists, but we believe this is a key dimension for researchers to explore to help them put their work into the hands of policymakers, stakeholders, community members, and changemakers who can use it to affect change. Furthermore, inclusive and thoughtful data visualization that respectfully reflects the people we are studying can also help us build trust with those communities.

Questioning default visualization approaches.  It is often reflexive when presenting data disaggregated by race or ethnicity to plot all of the groups on the same chart. However, as  Pieta Blakely  writes, doing so “encourages [the reader] to compare each of the groups to the highest performing groups” which can lead to a “deficit-based perspective” that focuses attention on what low-performing groups are lacking when compared with the high performers. Instead, Blakely proposes plotting each race on its own chart as a set of small multiples, which can better encourage readers to think about the specific needs and challenges facing each group.

This was the approach we took with Urban’s  Tracking COVID-19’s Effects by Race and Ethnicity  data tool, which seeks to present the disparate impact of the COVID-19 pandemic by race and ethnicity for various metrics. Initially, line charts were proposed that displayed all of the races in the same chart.

But as our work on the project progressed, we applied a racial equity awareness lens to how we were visualizing the data and began to question our initial approach. For one, putting all of the races on the same chart focused attention on only the hardest-hit groups, rather than on how members from all races and ethnicities have been negatively affected by the pandemic. Another issue was that plotting all of the races on one graph made it seem like the least-affected group was the goal the other races and ethnicities should seek to achieve. But why should that be the case? Upon further questioning, we decided a better comparison would show the state- or metrowide average. This approach had a couple benefits. First, it offered a consistent standard all groups could be measured against. Secondly, it meant we did not promote any particular racial or ethnic group as being the default group against which everyone else must be compared.

Our final design presents the data using a set of small multiples faceted by each racial and ethnic group with the relevant local average included as a benchmark. The estimates are shown as points surrounded by confidence interval blocks because of statistical and data collection concerns. The distance between the grey and green or grey and blue blocks reflects how much better or worse the group is doing compared with the average, and the change in that distance week to week indicates whether the disparity is worsening or improving over time. In weeks when the difference was not statistically significant, the estimates are shown using a lower opacity to reflect our uncertainty about the magnitude of the gap. We also made a conscious decision to sort the groups alphabetically rather than by data value. Because users can select different metrics in the final project, sorting alphabetically maintains the same order across all views rather than having the graphs shift around.

Engaging or reflecting lived experience.  Ideally, chart makers would not just implement our guidelines above but would also reach out to members of the communities being visualized and ask for their feedback and advice. Are we using language consistent with how they refer to themselves and others? What have we missed in our visuals that are inconsistent with a DEI framework? How can we take a more empathetic approach to creating data visualizations that accurately and respectfully account for other people’s lived experiences? It’s important to remember that data are a reflection of the lives of real people, not just a sterile abstraction.

Looking forward

As we continue to revise our data visualization style guide, we’ve noticed few, if any,  style guides from other organizations  mention accessibility, inclusion, or diversity. Our approach has been to create a set of recommendations and issues to consider rather than a set of rules that researchers must follow. Ultimately, we hope researchers will be thoughtful and deliberate about their  design choices , not just relying on software defaults or the status quo. If you or your organization has gone about setting guidelines for DEI in your visualizations, we would love to hear about them.

This post was  originally published  on the Data at Urban blog on September 3, 2020 and was co-authored with Alice Feng. Check out more great content from the Data at Urban blog on Medium .

The authors wish to thank Shena Ashley, Kreg Steven Brown, Kilolo Kijakazi, Heather Kraus, and Alexandra Tammaro for their thoughtful comments and feedback.

Further reading:

“Presenting data for a Targeted Universalist approach”

Design Justice: towards an intersectional feminist framework for design theory and practice  (PDF)

“ Designing data visualisations with empathy ”

“Can Visualization Elicit Empathy? Our Experiments with ‘Anthropographics ”

“Connecting with the Dots”

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Visualizing Health Equity: Qualitative Perspectives on the Value and Limits of Equity Images

Sarah s. willen.

1 University of Connecticut, Storrs, CT, USA

Colleen C. Walsh

2 Cleveland State University, Cleveland, OH, USA

Abigail Fisher Williamson

3 Trinity College, Hartford, CT, USA

Associated Data

Supplemental material, sj-docx-1-heb-10.1177_1090198121994520 for Visualizing Health Equity: Qualitative Perspectives on the Value and Limits of Equity Images by Sarah S. Willen, Colleen C. Walsh and Abigail Fisher Williamson in Health Education & Behavior

Health educators and advocacy groups often use side-by-side visual images to communicate about equity and to distinguish it from equality. Despite the near-ubiquity of these images, little is known about how they are understood by different audiences.

To assess the effectiveness of an image commonly used to communicate about health equity.

In 167 interviews with health stakeholders in Greater Cleveland, Ohio, in 2018 to 2019, a commonly used health equity image was shown to participants, who were asked to interpret its meaning. Interviewees included 21 health professionals, 21 clinicians, 22 metro-wide decision makers, 24 community leaders, and 79 community members.

About two thirds of our socioeconomically, racial/ethnically, educationally, and professionally diverse sample said the equity image helped clarify the distinction between “equality” and “equity.” Yet less than one third offered an interpretation consistent with the image’s goals of foregrounding not only injustice but also a need for systemic change. Patterns of misinterpretation were especially common among two groups: ideological conservatives and those of lower socioeconomic status. Conservatives were most likely to object to the image’s message.

Conclusions

Equity images are widely used by public health educators and advocates, yet they do not consistently communicate the message that achieving equity requires systemic change. In this moment of both public health crisis and urgent concern about systemic racism, new visual tools for communicating this crucial message are needed.

As the entwined crises of COVID-19 and systemic racism pull the United States toward what may become a genuine moment of reckoning, both population health and health communication strategies are very much in the public eye. Americans around the country, and across the political spectrum, are learning that Black, Latinx, and indigenous people face significantly greater risk of exposure, infection, and death from COVID-19 than their White counterparts ( Bowleg, 2020 ; Devakumar et al., 2020 ; Gee et al., 2020 ; Hardeman et al., 2020 ). From a public health communications standpoint, this is an opportune moment to take stock of the tools we use to communicate about the causes of health inequities in the United States ( Bailey et al., 2017 ; Geronimus et al., 2006 ; Hicken et al., 2018 ; Williams et al., 2019 ) and the larger goal of achieving health equity.

Specifically, the public health community must ask, Are our current tools for communicating about health equity and inequity—including terms and concepts as well as metaphors, parables, and images ( Dorfman et al., 2005 ; Griffith et al., 2017 ; C. Jones, 2016 ; C. P. Jones, 2000 ; Krieger et al., 2012 )—sufficiently clear and effective? Are they useful in communicating with the general public, or might their power be limited to people of certain political orientations, or to stakeholders in public health and adjacent fields?

In this article, we analyze the effectiveness of one commonly used tool: an image designed to convey the distinction between equality and equity ( Figure 1 ). This image, and others like it, have been used by educators and advocacy groups for nearly a decade to communicate two interlinked messages: First, when people have dramatically different levels of need, simply distributing resources equally will not produce just outcomes. Second, achieving justice and equity requires systemic change. Although equity images are widely employed to convey these paired messages, little is known about how they are understood by various audiences.

Equity image.

Note . Adapted from © 2014, Saskatoon Health Region.

We asked 167 individuals of diverse backgrounds and ideologies to respond to the apple tree image shown in Figure 1 as part of a two-phase interdisciplinary research study. We used the image (slightly adapted, as described below) with permission from the Saskatoon Health Region, which developed it in 2014. The image reenvisions a more commonly used baseball image, designed in 2012 by Craig Froehle (2016) . The original image shows three spectators of different heights trying to see over a wooden fence into a baseball stadium. The scenario on the left represents equality. The figures depicted receive the same level of “support”—a single box to stand on—but only two can see over the fence. The right represents an equitable scenario: Each spectator has enough boxes to see the game.

Since its creation, Froehle’s original image has been critiqued and redesigned in myriad ways ( Cultural Organizing, n.d .; Sippin the EquiTEA, 2018 ). One variation depicts a racetrack with staggered starting points, and another shows figures of different sizes and abilities riding bicycles adapted to their needs ( Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, n.d .). Another variation, riffing on children’s author Shel Silverstein’s (1964) The Giving Tree , includes four panels depicting inequality, equality, equity, and—using a system of pulleys and supports to reengineer the tree itself—a desired goal of justice (Ruth, cited in Maeda, 2019 ; cf. critique by Leong, 2020 ). In addition, a revamped version of Froehle’s original image became the basis for “#the4thbox,” a website, tool kit, and online digital game in which three images labeled “equality,” “equity,” and “liberation” are paired with a fourth, empty box whose content participants are invited to envision for themselves ( Cultural Organizing, n.d .). In short, images of this sort have come to play an outsized role in conversations about equality and equity, yet we do not know how they are understood by different groups of stakeholders.

We used the apple tree image for this study because it addresses several key critiques of the original baseball image. Whereas Froehle’s image depicts three White males, race/ethnicity, and gender in this image are unmarked. Also, some contend that baseball lacks universal appeal, contra ripe fruit. Last, since participants were less likely to have seen the apple tree image, we expected it was more likely to elicit substantive reactions.

Although this image is composed of simple visual elements, the narrative it encodes demands a fair amount of abstract thinking. As we understand it, the image conveys not a single story, but two stories in parallel, bridged by a third, synthesizing narrative that unfolds in four steps:

• Even if resources (the boxes) are apportioned equally, individuals still have different levels of need and, consequently, different levels of opportunity.
• The existence of unequal opportunities is unfair or unjust.
• Justice—or equity—requires the distribution of resources according to need.
• Achieving equity, and thereby justice, will require change in how the system itself is organized.

The first three messages are clearly encoded in the image, while the fourth—which is arguably the most important from a policy or action-oriented standpoint—is implied but not spelled out explicitly. We were especially interested in knowing whether interviewees’ understandings of the image would match these communication goals—and if not, where interpretations diverge.

This intended interpretation of the image aligns with prevailing understandings of health equity, itself a “forceful term tending to imply a strong judgment about causality” ( Braveman et al., 2011 ), as well as the public health field’s deep-rooted commitment to social justice ( Beauchamp, 1976 ; Krieger & Birn, 1998 ). From an equity standpoint, everyone deserves “a fair and just opportunity to be as healthy as possible” ( Braveman et al., 2017 , p. 2; cf. Office of Minority Health & Health Equity, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2020 ). Unlike descriptive terms such as health disparities , terms such as equity and inequity highlight population-level differences that are, as Whitehead (1992) famously put it, “avoidable, unnecessary, and unjust” (p. 431). Importantly, the language of equity and inequity calls for “special attention to the needs of those at greatest risk of poor health, based on social conditions” ( Braveman, 2014 , p. 6). In essence, the logic of health equity is fundamentally about addressing injustice through systemic change.

Do equity images succeed in conveying this message? We assessed the degree to which different groups of health stakeholders recognized and responded to this image, including whether any groups might struggle to understand it, resist its intended meaning, and/or present alternative ways of communicating about equity that merit attention. To anticipate our findings: the image is largely successful in conveying a sense of injustice, but does not prompt discussion of systems change, in part because it “frames” ( Dorfman et al., 2005 ; Entman, 1993 ; Knight et al., 2016 ; Viladrich, 2019 ) equity as an individual-level concern as opposed to a systemic or structural issue.

Data Collection

In 2018 to 2019, we conducted ethnographic participant-observation and semistructured interviews with 170 residents of diverse backgrounds and ideologies in Greater Cleveland, Ohio, as part of a larger study of individual perspectives on “heath-related deservingness” ( Willen, 2012 ; Willen & Cook 2016 ; cf. Viladrich, 2019 , p. 1449). In most interviews ( n = 167), following a discussion about understandings of the term health equity , participants were shown the apple tree image in Figure 1 on a double-sided, laminated page. On the first side, interviewees saw the image without “equality” and “equity” labeled. They were asked to explain the image in their own words and to describe whether they identified with any of the figures depicted. We then displayed the labeled image and asked whether interviewees found it useful in communicating the distinction between these terms.

The sample included public health professionals ( n = 21), clinicians ( n = 21), metro-wide decision makers ( n = 22), community leaders ( n = 24), and community members ( n = 79). The study was conducted in partnership with a local health and equity initiative in which some interviewees, but few community members, participated ( n = 53). As Table 1 illustrates, the community member subsample reflects the demographics of the county in which the study was conducted. Interviewees were recruited through community partners, snowball sampling, and outreach in community venues. Interviews lasted approximately 1½ hours, and participants completed a postinterview demographic survey. The interview guide was developed in consultation with a diverse advisory board of researchers, health professionals, and community advocates.

Interview Sample, With Comparison to Cuyahoga County.

Note . Source. Demographic data: 2010–2016 American Community Survey, U.S. Census Bureau. Partisan data: Cuyahoga County Board of Elections, registered voters data, accessed 2018.

Data Analysis

Interviews were audio-recorded and transcribed for analysis using Dedoose, an online mixed-methods data analysis platform (Version 8.0.35). Analysis proceeded in four stages: (1) writing of analytic memos for each interview; (2) index coding to divide transcripts into salient sections for deeper analysis ( Deterding & Waters, 2018 ); (3) inductive review and iterative generation of an analytic codebook by a team of coders; (4) preliminary coding followed by discussions to achieve consensus around code definitions and resolve coding discrepancies; and (5) completion of coding of relevant interview segments. Since codes are not mutually exclusive, multiple thematic codes could be applied to participant responses.

Drawing on postinterview demographic survey responses, we analyzed patterns of response by socioeconomic status, race/ethnicity, gender, political ideology, interview type (public health professional, clinician, decision maker, community leader, community member), and participation in the health equity initiative. The findings below highlight patterns from two-sided tests of proportions and multivariate probit analyses that control for the above characteristics ( p values reported parenthetically). Two-sided tests compare a given subgroup to the sample as a whole (full analyses are available in the Supplemental Appendix ).

The 167 interviews we conducted in Greater Cleveland suggest that familiarity with equity images is relatively common, especially—but not only—among individuals in health professions. Many participants reported that the image helped clarify the distinction between equality and equity. Participants also tended to see the scenario depicted as unjust but, importantly, they did not consistently interpret it as a call for systems change. Rather, many interpreted the image as calling for localized or individual, as opposed to systemic, solutions. Others actively pushed back against its message for ideological, pedagogical, or strategic reasons. Interpretations of the image varied systematically by socioeconomic status, political ideology, and participant type, but not by race/ethnicity or gender.

Familiarity With Equity Images

Three quarters of participants were asked directly whether they had seen this image or another like it. Of this group, 61% (76/125) responded affirmatively. Of course, our sample includes some people who are likely to encounter equity images in professional contexts, including both public health professionals and participants in a health equity initiative. Eighteen of the 21 public health professionals (86%) had previously seen either this specific image or another like it. Of public health professionals uninvolved in the health equity initiative, fewer had seen an equity image (70%; 7/10). Only two thirds of community members were asked directly whether they had seen such an image, but among those asked, 40% (20/50) reported that they had, and none were participants in the health equity initiative. In short, public health professionals were especially familiar with equity images (test of proportions: p = .01; multivariate [five-category interview type]: p = .07), but some members of the public were familiar with them as well.

Clarifying the Distinction Between Equality Versus Equity

As a first level of analysis, we sought to establish whether images like this one are useful in clarifying the distinction between equality and equity. Of the 86% of participants asked this question (144/167), nearly two thirds (64%; 92/144) said it did, while only 8% (12/144) said it did not. Others were unsure or offered an inconclusive response (28%; 40/144).

Some participants described the images as illuminating, or even indispensable to their own understanding of society. One White public health professional said, “I don’t think that I could ever articulate equality and equity until I saw these images,” and another reported that “this is a very powerful way to express the difference between the two.” Responses like these were common among professionals, with nearly three quarters of public health professionals, clinicians, and community leaders finding the image clarifying, along with just over two thirds of metro-wide decision makers.

For others, especially those with less education or a conservative political ideology, the image was less successful in conveying this distinction, though differences between groups fell below conventional levels of statistical significance. Among those with less than a bachelor’s degree, only 55% found it clarifying (18/33; test of proportions: p = .21; multivariate: p = .09). For instance, a Black community member with some college education said the image was “not really” clarifying because, “I don’t really hear about equality or equity too much . . . on an everyday basis.” Notably, less than half of conservatives said the image clarified the distinction (46%; 11/24; test of proportions: p = .07; multivariate: p = .35).

Intended and Unintended Interpretations

In addition to distinguishing between these terms, equity images intend to convey two other messages as well: (1) that an equal distribution of resources will fail to achieve equity when people have dramatically different levels of need and (2) that justice cannot be served simply by divvying up resources equally—rather, it requires systemic change. In our interviews, most participants picked up on the first of these messages, interpreting the image as conveying an unjust arrangement. Relatively few, however, perceived a need for systemic change. Alternative solutions proposed included individual effort or hard work, sharing or cooperation, or direct help to those in need.

Seeing Injustice

As Figure 2 illustrates, 74% of participants (123/167) expressed a sense of moral discomfort with the injustice they perceived in the image. Such qualms were exceedingly common among public health professionals (95%; 20/21; test of proportions: p = .02; multivariate [five-category interview type]: p = .08), but less common among community members (61%; 48/79; test of proportions: p = .00; multivariate [five-category interview type]: p = .08). Notably, they were least commonly expressed by people who identified as conservative (27%; 8/30; test of proportions: p = .00; multivariate: p = .00).

Percent perceiving injustice in the image, by interview type, education, and ideology.

Note . CM = community member; CL = community leader; DM = metro-wide decision maker; PH = public health professional; C = clinician.

* p < .05 in two-sided tests of proportions.

Changing Systems as the Solution

While recognizing injustice was a relatively common response, fewer than a third of participants (31%; 51/167) saw the image as calling for systematic redistribution or systems change ( Figure 3 ). Among those who perceived this message, one Black community leader said that “the most equitable way” would look quite different: “not that people have to reach up, but that all of these apples have fallen off the tree. They’re on the ground, and they can be picked up by anybody.” Similarly, a White public health professional with a graduate degree described the need for structural change in terms of “building up the boxes or just pulling the branches down.” She continued “if there’s a reason that we need boxes, then can we fix the reasons so that we don’t need boxes?”

Percent identifying need for systemic change in the image, by interview type, education, and ideology.

Public health professionals (43%; 9/21) and metro-wide decision makers (50%; 11/22) were most likely to offer interpretations like these, which were offered much less frequently by clinicians (19%; 4/21) and community members (22%; 17/79), although only decision makers’ and community members’ responses were statistically distinct (decision makers test of proportions: p = .03; community members test of proportions: p = .02; multivariate [five-category interview type]: p = .69). In contrast, those without ready access to a vocabulary of systems change were especially unlikely to raise these themes. For instance, only 18% of interviewees without a bachelor’s degree did so (7/40; test of proportions: p = .04; multivariate: p = .17).

Other Proposed Solutions

Many interviewees pointed to solutions at the individual or communal level that fall far short of full-on systemic change, including (1) individual effort or hard work; (2) sharing, cooperation, or solidarity; or (3) direct help to individuals in need.

In all, 13% of interviewees (22/167) mentioned individual effort or hard work—a theme raised with particular frequency by conservatives (40%; 12/30; test of proportions: p = .00; multivariate: p = .02). One college-educated White conservative interviewee, for example, appreciated that the figures were reaching for the fruit. He supported “giving people a foot up, but . . . not handing it to them.” “If this was a picture where it was being handed to them,” he explained, “that would be wrong.” Notably, more than one quarter of interviewees earning less than $30,000/year mentioned this theme (27%; 7/26; test of proportions: p = .04; multivariate: p = .09).

A slightly smaller proportion of participants (11%; 19/167) pointed to cooperation, sharing of resources, or solidarity as distinct from broader systems-level change. This interpretation was offered more often by low-income participants, including almost a quarter of those earning less than $30,000/year (23%; 6/26; test of proportions: p = .04; multivariate: p = .04), as compared with just 4% (3/73) of those making more than $100,000/year.

Last, for 20% of participants (34/167), the image suggested a need for direct help to those in need, whether family members, people in one’s social networks, or people in general. Conservatives were most likely to offer this response (33%; 10/30; test of proportions: p = .04; multivariate: p = .07). One college-educated White man, for instance, responded, “See, that’s what I do for my friends. . . . that’s what I do with my whole life. I find somebody who can’t reach and I put a step stool under their feet, but they have to reach. You don’t reach for them.”

Nearly a quarter of participants (21%; 35/167) resisted the image’s message or design in some way—albeit for divergent reasons. Of this group, more than two-thirds (69%; 24/35) expressed personal reservations about either the moral or the political implications of the image—including over a third of conservatives (40%, 12/30; test of proportions: p = .01; multivariate: p = .27), as compared to just 8% of liberals (6/79). A smaller number pushed back against the image for a different reason; they suggested the image has limited value as a communications or educational tool. Ten (6%) saw it as oversimplifying, and another five (3%) noted that others had resisted, or would be likely to resist, the image’s message or design.

Expressions of resistance from conservatives merit particular attention, since they raise larger questions about the relative strengths and limitations of equity images. One form of pushback hinged on ideas of both dependence and zero-sum logic. A college-educated, conservative White community member described the image as “extremely biased,” stating that

This taller person with only one box doesn’t deserve to be punished because the shorter person needs more boxes. . . . Okay shorter person, . . . I’ll help you get this box. . . . I’m not gonna give him two more boxes to get to the apple. . . . What can I do to help you build the box? I’ll get you some wood, let’s build the box. . . . I don’t believe in just “oh, let’s give you three boxes.” . . . They need to figure out how to get to the box.

A very different form of resistance came from another corner: from those who felt the image tells the wrong story—specifically, that it focuses on inequities between individuals as opposed to deeper inequities in infrastructure. For example, an African American public health professional with a graduate degree explained that

No one should have to have a box to stand on to reach an apple . . . they [should] all start off with the same foundation, and the same ability to grow. . . . If you put . . . two plants in the same soil, you know, same amount of water, same sunlight, then you would never have to boost one up. They’re just going to naturally grow.

A college-educated decision maker of mixed ethnicity made a similar argument, albeit in spicier language:

Rather than saying “equality versus equity”—where’s liberation? Like, why does the tree even have to be that tall to begin with? We should . . . GMO the [expletive] out of trees until they are short enough so that everyone can reach them! How’s that?

In short, some conservatives interpreted the “equity” side of the image as an unwarranted allocation of unearned resources, presumably to the detriment of those who work hard. For some public health professionals and decision makers, in contrast, its focus on individuals is misplaced, and the optimal response involves an overhaul of how society is organized in the first place.

As the COVID-19 pandemic wreaks havoc across the United States and around the world, the nuts and bolts of public health practice and communications are squarely in the public eye. Public health officials are household names, and preventive measures, contact tracing, and epidemiological data appear in daily news headlines. At the same time, growing awareness of systemic racism and the risks it poses to the health—and the lives—of Black, Latinx, Asian American, and other U.S. citizens and residents is producing tidal waves of fierce emotion and political response. In this tense moment, we are witnessing a stunning stand-off between what Bellah et al. (1985) call the first language of American values, individualism, and its second language: interconnectedness, interdependence, and community—the core values of public health ( Wallack & Lawrence, 2005 ; cf. Beauchamp, 1976 ; Krieger & Birn, 1998 ).

Many in the U.S. are now ready for tough conversations about the fundamental causes ( Link & Phelan, 1995 ) of health inequities—in relation to COVID-19, police violence, and other issues—and about the urgent if uphill work of advancing health equity ( Walsh et al., 2020 ). Others actively reject both the basic logic of public health and the “second language” of interconnectedness, at times in favor of a radical individualism that sees such tough conversations themselves as a threat ( Exec. Order No. 13950, 2020 ; NPR Staff, 2020 ). In this moment of health crisis and political discord, what tools does the public health community need in order to communicate effectively with the public? Equity images are among the tools public health educators have come to rely on most. But how effective are they?

From one angle, our findings appear encouraging. Images like these are prevalent. Over 60% of interviewees volunteered that they had seen the apple tree image in Figure 1 or another like it. They are also memorable, or “sticky.” When asked to explain “health equity” in her own words, one White community leader with a graduate degree anticipated the next portion of the interview, referencing the Froehle image: “You know what’s funny? They have burned the image in my mind of the boy standing at the baseball diamond.” For many, including 64% of our interviewees, such images are useful in clarifying the distinction between equality and equity.

However, if these images aim not only to demonstrate injustice but also to garner support for systemic change, they are less effective than expected. Nearly three quarters of interviewees (74%) saw the image as conveying an unjust situation. Yet fewer than one third (31%) offered an interpretation involving redistribution or another form of systemic change. Strikingly, less than half of public health professionals (43%) and only 19% of clinicians pointed to systemic change in their explanations. Thinking back to the four-step narrative outlined earlier, the first three steps consistently “land” with viewers, but the fourth—arguably the most important—does not.

In addition, we also found noteworthy patterns of resistance to the messages the image is meant to convey. More than a third of conservatives (40%; 12/30) expressed reservations about the image’s moral or political implications, often suggesting that the inequalities depicted should be remedied through private or community-level actions such as individual effort, direct help, or cooperation and sharing. Conservatives were more likely to perceive individual-level problems, and to resist systemic—that is, government—solutions.

A handful of knowledgeable public health professionals, community leaders, and decision makers also resisted the image’s individual-level focus, but for different reasons altogether. For them, the image simply fell short of communicating what we define here as its fourth, implicit message—the message that confronting health inequity is fundamentally about systems and structures, not individuals. From this standpoint, a focus on individual limitations or opportunities is the wrong frame at best. At worst, it distracts from the urgent work of raising awareness about fundamental causes and building durable solutions.

We can certainly imagine settings in which images like this one might serve as meaningful catalysts of substantive conversation and reflection—and we suspect the “#4thbox” tool kit mentioned above may operate in precisely this way. Nonetheless, our findings suggest that these images—when presented without opportunities for elaboration or further discussion—invoke what health communications researchers would call the wrong frame ( Entman, 1993 ; cf. Dorfman et al., 2005 ; Wallack & Lawrence, 2005 ) or mental model ( N. A. Jones et al., 2011 ; Southwell et al., 2020 ). By depicting individuals, they bring to mind common-sense frames associated with what Beauchamp (1976) calls “market justice” values of rugged individualism, self-discipline, limited government, and personal effort. They do not consistently convey the values of interconnectedness, shared responsibility, and appreciation of the role of government that are foundational to public health ( Bailey et al., 2017 ; Beauchamp, 1976 ; Krieger & Birn, 1998 ; Wallack & Lawrence, 2005 ), and that bolster broader arguments for societal restructuring.

Given that our sample includes 167 interviewees in one metro area, the generalizability of our findings is limited. Also, asking interviewees which figure they identified with may have yielded more individual and less systematic interpretations. In addition, we asked interviewees to offer their interpretations as opposed to introducing the image as a starting point for collective reflection on the image and its meaning. Future research could explore the efficacy of this or other equity images as starting points for conversation—including versions that include alternatives to equality and equity such as liberation or justice. Similarly, it may be useful to investigate the comparative effectiveness of variations that represent and juxtapose communities rather than individuals (e.g., Kinshella, 2016 ).

In this moment of widespread awakening to the vast scope and cascading implications of structural racism and other forms of structural injustice, health researchers and advocates need to reflect carefully on the terms, metaphors, and—in particular—the visual imagery in our communicative tool kit. If we aim to communicate that genuine systemic change is required to eliminate health inequities and ensure that all people can lead a healthy and flourishing life, then we may well need to go back to the proverbial drawing board.

Supplemental Material

Acknowledgments.

The authors thank the ARCHES Research Team and Advisory Board; Advisory Board members and interviewers Heide Castañeda, Erica N. Chambers, Ronnie Dunn, Katherine Mason, William Tootle, and Ruqaiijah A. Yearby; the leadership of Health Improvement Partnership-Cuyahoga (HIP-Cuyahoga); and research assistants Yuliya Faryna, Mikayla Hyman, Ava Iannitti, Anne Kohler, John Lawson, Anneke Nyary Levine, Noor Malik, Lucy Pereira, Tracy Segall, Julia Tempesta, Shayna Thomas, Mary Tursi, and Brooke Williams.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests: The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding: The authors disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: Support for this research was provided by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (Grant No. 74898). The views expressed here do not necessarily reflect the views of the Foundation.

Supplemental Material: Supplemental material for this article is available online at https://journals.sagepub.com/home/heb .

All Subjects

Visual equity

In history of graphic design.

Visual equity refers to the practice of creating visual content that represents and includes diverse perspectives, identities, and experiences, ensuring equal representation across various media. It emphasizes the importance of inclusivity in design by actively considering who is represented and how they are portrayed, ultimately working to eliminate biases and stereotypes in visual communication.

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5 Must Know Facts For Your Next Test

• Visual equity aims to disrupt traditional narratives that often exclude marginalized groups from representation in design.
• This concept encourages designers to critically assess their work for bias and seek out diverse voices during the creative process.
• Implementing visual equity can lead to more relatable and authentic content that resonates with a broader audience.
• The practice involves not just the inclusion of diverse images but also considering the impact of colors, shapes, and symbols that may carry different meanings across cultures.
• Visual equity is increasingly recognized as essential for brands aiming to connect with consumers who prioritize social responsibility and authenticity.

Review Questions

• Visual equity enhances the design process by ensuring that diverse audiences are represented authentically in visual content. This approach allows designers to consider varying perspectives and experiences, leading to more relevant and impactful designs. By actively including voices from different backgrounds, designers can create visuals that resonate with a wider audience and foster a sense of belonging.
• Designers often face several challenges when implementing visual equity, including unconscious biases that may affect their choices and the pressure to conform to established norms in visual representation. Additionally, there may be a lack of access to diverse talent or resources that reflect varied perspectives. Overcoming these obstacles requires intentionality in seeking out underrepresented voices and a commitment to reevaluating existing practices in order to foster inclusivity.
• Visual equity plays a crucial role in shaping consumer perception and brand identity by aligning a brand’s visual representation with contemporary values around diversity and inclusion. Brands that prioritize visual equity are seen as more authentic and socially responsible, which can enhance consumer loyalty. By thoughtfully representing diverse identities and experiences in their visuals, brands can connect more deeply with consumers who seek genuine representation, ultimately driving engagement and market success.

Related terms

Inclusive Design : A design approach that aims to make products and services accessible and usable for as many people as possible, regardless of their background or abilities.

Representation : The depiction or portrayal of individuals or groups in visual media, which can significantly influence public perception and societal norms.

Diversity : The inclusion of different types of people (different races, ethnicities, genders, sexual orientations, etc.) in a particular setting or context, enriching the creative process and outcomes.

" Visual equity " also found in:

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Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion

Common pitfalls to avoid in the visual representation of race and ethnicity  .

by Rebecca Swift Published 3 June 2024 in Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion • 5 min read

While there is growing awareness of the need to demonstrate diversity in terms of race and ethnicity in images, organizations still fall into common traps. In the latest installment of our visual representation series, Rebecca Swift, SVP Creative at Getty Images, shares tips to ensure images don’t tokenize or misrepresent communities of color.

Race and ethnicity are often combined and frequently confused. While race is a social construct used to describe a group of people who share physical attributes – most notably in how skin color was defined to justify enslavement in the US, segregation as part of the Jim Crow laws, or during the apartheid period in South Africa – ethnicity, on the other hand, refers to a shared cultural background, history, or descent.

Most countries define people by their ethnic groups. For example, Latino or Aboriginal/First Nation Australian. Although there are approximately 87 ethnic groups in Europe alone, marketers tend to take a broad approach to ethnicity when thinking about inclusion using White, Black/African, South Asian (Indian, Pakistani/ Bangladeshi), East/Southeast Asian, Indigenous people (e.g., Native American, Māori New Zealanders etc.), and Hispanic/Latino/Latina.

Awareness of the basic need to depict more people from different communities of color has been on the rise, even before the Black Lives Matter protests of 2020. Yet these efforts are still often fraught with mistakes and misunderstandings. Tokenism is still an issue when it comes to the representation of all minority ethnic groups, and people of color are twice as likely (according to Getty Images VisualGPS studies) to appear only as part of a multi-ethnic group than a white person. The risk here is that representation backfires when people feel they are only being shown to fill a quota.

With the rise of hate crime incidents against certain races and ethnicities during the pandemic, the need to depict cultures and communities more authentically has never been more important.

Here I outline some of the common mistakes organizations still make when considering race and ethnicity in their imagery:

Be wary of over-representation

At Getty Images, our most popular visuals still tend to depict people of color in multiracial groups. Moreover, some groups are more likely to be depicted than others.

For example, in the UK, the representation of black people is around 26%, compared to the actual demographic mix of around 3%. In contrast, the largest ethnic minority in the UK, South Asian, only appears 1.7% of the time, far below the population percentage.

In these instances, organizations may think they are being inclusive because their marketing material features people of color, but they are failing to recognize the great diversity of ethnicities, backgrounds, cultures, and languages, that make up a certain population. In doing so, they undermine their authenticity.

Avoid reinforcing bias and stereotypes

Just because a photo includes people from multiracial backgrounds, it doesn’t automatically mean that they are represented inclusively.

At Getty Images, when we see Indian people represented visually, they are shown with technology, such as a computer or a smartphone, one-third of the time. This compares to a fifth of the time for white British people and a tenth of the time for black people.

Our VisualGPS research also finds that when people from the Asian community are represented, they are shown at work 45% of the time, but rarely in leadership positions. White people are 10 times more likely to be depicted in a leadership role in business even though British Chinese workers have higher average earnings than their white British counterparts. When visualizing minority ethnic groups at work, don’t overlook images showing them in a greater variety of roles and scenarios, such as managers, entrepreneurs, or educators.

Don’t overlook certain ethnicities

Our research shows that Asian communities are visually underrepresented across all regions and in certain demographics and roles. There is also a lack of intersectionality – that is, representation of Asian people as part of the LGBTQ+ community, with different body types or disabilities, or even of different ages.

For example, in the UK, Asian people are rarely shown as children or young adults. In Germany, people of Asian origin are once again over-represented in working scenarios, but missing in images depicting families, or having meaningful relationships with friends. Think about how visual representation could show multidimensional people engaging in hobbies or expressing interests.

A notable example of a brand that has sought to defy traditional stereotypes in its representation of people of color is the UK mobile phone network Three. In this TV commercial, Three shows a black couple carrying out various activities that have traditionally been depicted by white people, such as gardening, on a hike in the countryside, out for dinner at a sushi restaurant, and relaxing at a spa.

The brand also sponsors the TV show Gogglebox on commercial television and has turned the tokenistic stereotype on its head by featuring a South Asian family at home and one of the sons has a white girlfriend.

The key questions

Questions to ask yourself when considering ethnicity as part of being more inclusive in your communications:  

• Are your efforts relying on tokenism when depicting race/ethnicity?  
• Are you humanizing the people you depict by telling robust, authentic stories about communities of color?  
• Are you checking the roles that people are playing in your visuals?  
• Are people of color featured in a variety of roles and professions? Are they displaying a variety of hobbies, interests, or lifestyles?  
• Are you showing people of color in moments of celebration and enjoyment (not just at work)?  
• Are you showing a range of skin tones, facial features, and hair textures, reflecting diversity within all communities?  
• Are you showing a person’s race/ethnicity alongside other intersections of their identity (e.g., gender identity, age, disability, sexual orientation)?  
• Are you reflecting the cultural nuances and traditions of different ethnicities, especially around cultural and food traditions?  

For more information consult the following resources: The Black Experience,  Nosotros, Asian representation in the UK, Asian representation in France, and Asian representation in Germany .

All of Getty’s D&I guides are available to download here, and you can read other articles in the series here and here.

The image at the top of the page is by Klaus Vedfelt .

Rebecca Swift

VP Global Head of Creative Insights at Getty Images 

Rebecca runs the Creative Insights team, who set the content strategy for Getty Images and run global research projects investigating the future of visual communications. She leads the D&I initiatives at Getty Images and is focused on evolving visual representation, leading partnerships such as #ShowUs with Dove (winner of 40+ international creative awards, including a Glass Lion and Effies). Rebecca has a PhD in photography.    

Women on European boards: A route towards 40% 

16 August 2024 • by Jennifer Jordan , Alexander Fleischmann in Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion

A new EU law will oblige companies to meet a 40% quota for women on boards by 2026. This is set to drive a major shift in how businesses appoint non-executive...

Six lessons from Paris 2024 on how to win the game of advancing gender equality 

30 July 2024 • by Ronit Kark in Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion

Here are six best practice examples from the Olympic Games to ensure business leaders can accelerate gender equality in their organizations ...

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Visualizing Health Equity: Qualitative Perspectives on the Value and Limits of Equity Images

Affiliations.

• 1 University of Connecticut, Storrs, CT, USA.
• 2 Cleveland State University, Cleveland, OH, USA.
• 3 Trinity College, Hartford, CT, USA.
• PMID: 33739205
• PMCID: PMC8564227
• DOI: 10.1177/1090198121994520

Background: Health educators and advocacy groups often use side-by-side visual images to communicate about equity and to distinguish it from equality. Despite the near-ubiquity of these images, little is known about how they are understood by different audiences.

Aims: To assess the effectiveness of an image commonly used to communicate about health equity.

Method: In 167 interviews with health stakeholders in Greater Cleveland, Ohio, in 2018 to 2019, a commonly used health equity image was shown to participants, who were asked to interpret its meaning. Interviewees included 21 health professionals, 21 clinicians, 22 metro-wide decision makers, 24 community leaders, and 79 community members.

Results: About two thirds of our socioeconomically, racial/ethnically, educationally, and professionally diverse sample said the equity image helped clarify the distinction between "equality" and "equity." Yet less than one third offered an interpretation consistent with the image's goals of foregrounding not only injustice but also a need for systemic change. Patterns of misinterpretation were especially common among two groups: ideological conservatives and those of lower socioeconomic status. Conservatives were most likely to object to the image's message.

Conclusions: Equity images are widely used by public health educators and advocates, yet they do not consistently communicate the message that achieving equity requires systemic change. In this moment of both public health crisis and urgent concern about systemic racism, new visual tools for communicating this crucial message are needed.

Keywords: health communications; health disparities; health equity; mixed methods; qualitative methods; social marketing.

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Conflict of interest statement

Declaration of Conflicting Interests: The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Equity image. Note . Adapted…

Equity image. Note . Adapted from © 2014, Saskatoon Health Region.

Percent perceiving injustice in the…

Percent perceiving injustice in the image, by interview type, education, and ideology. Note…

Percent identifying need for systemic…

Percent identifying need for systemic change in the image, by interview type, education,…

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Center for Intercultural Dialogue

Communication Clearinghouse

Robert Wood Johnson Foundation: Equality vs. Equity Graphic

There’s a wonderful graphic image of the difference between equality and equity, created by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

Their concern is with the context of health, but presumably the same image would be valuable in discussing equality vs. equity in a wide range of contexts, including discussions of intercultural differences. (They ask that people share this image.)

Tamara Makoni provides one example of using the RWJF design within the context of discussing diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI).

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Driving Authentic Representation in Marketing and Communications, One Image at a Time

Imagery Toolkits

Where are there opportunities to improve representation and inclusion?

What do we see in the visuals typically chosen in that market?

What is the demographic and psychographic landscape of each market?

Getty Images' proprietary data and expertise as the world's leading visual content provider fueled the insights that inform the DE&I Imagery Toolkits. We analyzed millions of annual downloads and billions of searches, tapped into Getty Images Visual GPS research and Kantar's global monitor report to provide actionable insights to help us all be more inclusive in visual storytelling. The toolkits address three important questions:

To help marketers and communicators infuse authenticity into their visual storytelling across all communication channels and platforms. As brands prioritize diversity and inclusion, we need to ensure intent converts to action. What do they offer? A roadmap for incorporating authentic and multi-faceted depictions of people in global content, while also identifying biases and stereotypes through specific lenses of identity, including:

Our Goal for the ToolkitS

Join us in our mission to change perceptions and make a difference through honest and authentic messaging and imagery.

of visuals include LGBQ+ identities

Low representation leads to lack of authenticity.

Source: Getty Images Visual GPS 2020

Sexual Orientation refers to a person’s inherent or immutable enduring emotional, romantic, or sexual attraction to other people. It is focused on a person’s relationships and is separate from gender identity.

of people over 50 don’t believe they’re accurately portrayed in advertising

It’s time to provide a more realistic reflection of the varied and important roles older adults play in our lives.

Age is defined as the length of time that a person has lived. A person’s experience socially, culturally, economically, etc. can often be impacted by how young or old they are.

consumers who experience discrimination attribute that discrimination to their religion

Religions around the world have varying customs that may affect the way people dress, what they eat, what they participate in, how they marry plus much more.

OF adults lives with a disability

represent people with disabilities despite the fact that

People with disabilities are one of the largest groups in the world yet they are all but invisible within media.

of people who experience discrimination believe it’s due to their body shape, size or type

There is a real need for body positivity.

Bodies cover all aspects of a person’s physical appearance. It’s especially connected to body image, which refers to a subjective picture of one’s own physical appearance established both by self-observation and by noting the reactions of others.

are more likely to appear in scenarios related to business, leadership or innovation.

more visuals

Though women are included in

Gender is nuanced and complex.

people of color feel they experience discrimination due to their skin color

Inclusive imagery should go beyond simply showing different racial and ethnic backgrounds – it should challenge harmful stereotypes.

Race and Ethnicity are not mutually exclusive categorizations and can overlap for certain communities.

RACE & ethnicity

SEXUAL ORIENTATION

Visuals impact the way we see ourselves—and the world around us. When inclusiveness and diversity are considered in imagery, authentic representation is created that can change perceptions, shift mindsets, and help create lasting connections between brands and consumers. To cultivate greater diversity and inclusivity in our marketing and communications, Getty Images partnered with Citi to develop Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Imagery Toolkits across 10 countries. The toolkits provide marketers, communicators, and creatives with country-specific data and insights that capture cultural and regional nuances, as well as actionable insights to create authentic and multi-faceted depictions of people in marketing and communications.

We know that when we celebrate diversity, we can move the culture forward.

Getty Images is the world’s foremost visual expert—capturing, creating and preserving content to elevate visual communications everywhere. By identifying cultural shifts, spearheading trends and powering the creative economy, we fuel visual storytelling worldwide.

CUSTOM CONTENT On brand. On budget. Only for you. Bring the engine behind Getty Images’ content production and operations to your brand. Discover our global network of 340,000+ creators to develop exclusive content. Explore>

Getty Images is the world’s foremost visual expert—capturing, creating and preserving content to elevate visual communications everywhere. By identifying cultural shifts, spearheading trends and powering the creative economy, we fuel visual storytelling worldwide. It has never been so important to build an inclusive narrative. With the world in constant change, visual content must be in line with new realities. How do you connect with today's consumer in an authentic and relevant way? We can help you. Use Getty Images' visual expertise to build your next narrative through our global network of photographers and videographers, creating a library of content unique to your brand.

DOWNLOAD US TOOLKIT

Join us in our mission to change perceptions and make a difference through honest and authentic messaging and imagery. Over the next few months, Citi and Getty Images will be releasing DE&I Imagery Toolkits in multiple markets around the globe, including Singapore, Mexico, India, Hong Kong, the UAE, and many more. Please check back often to get inclusivity insights into these markets.

ACTIONABLE INSIGHTS

DOWNLOAD THE TOOLKIT

Gender stereotypes are pervasive for women and men.

The visual emphasis is often on their disability rather than authentic everyday living.

DOWNLOAD THE MEXICO DE&I IMAGERY TOOLKIT DOWNLOAD the UK DE&I IMAGERY Toolkit DOWNLOAD the US DE&I IMAGERY Toolkit

CLICK ON THE COUNTRY NAME TO DOWNLOAD THE DE&I IMAGERY TOOLKIT MEXICO | SINGAPORE | UK | US

DOWNLOAD THE MEXICO DE&I TOOLKIT DOWNLOAD the SINGAPORE DE&I IMAGERY Toolkit DOWNLOAD the UK DE&I IMAGERY Toolkit DOWNLOAD the US DE&I IMAGERY Toolkit

DOWNLOAD the US DE&I IMAGERY Toolkit

DOWNLOAD the UK DE&I IMAGERY Toolkit

for example, Low income family celebrating birthdays or Christmas and School children walking to school with friends are rarely shown

There are areas of opportunity in the current visual landscpe.

Socioeconomic Status may be defined as the type of work people currently do or have done in the past if they are past retirement age. Class is still presented as a stereotype in advertising, compounded when someone is shown as coming from particular areas of the country.

SOCIOECONOMIC STATUS*

*not all lenses are in every toolkit to ensure we are being culturally relevant

CHANGE PERCEPTIONS,

HOW CAN YOU

SHIFT MINDSETS,

and CREATE LASTING CONNECTIONS?

HONEST, AUTHENTIC, REPRESENTATION.

We can help.

DIVERSITY, EQUITY, & INCLUSION

The DE&I Imagery Toolkits are a roadmap for incorporating authentic and multi-faceted depictions of people in global content, while also identifying biases and stereotypes through specific lenses of identity*:

SOCIOECONOMIC STATUS

As brands prioritize diversity and inclusion, we need to ensure intent converts to action.

Getty Images is the world’s foremost visual expert—capturing, creating and preserving content to elevate visual communications everywhere. By identifying cultural shifts, spearheading trends and powering the creative economy, we fuel visual storytelling worldwide. Getty Images proprietary data, VisualGPS, and our visual expertise fueled the insights for the DEI Imagery Toolkits. It has never been so important to build an inclusive narrative. With the world in constant change, visual content must be in line with new realities. How do you connect with today's consumer in an authentic and relevant way? We can help you. Use Getty Images' visual expertise to build your next narrative through our global network of photographers and videographers, creating a library of content unique to your brand.

CLICK HERE TO LINK TO THE DE&I IMAGERY SEARCH GUIDE

WATCH LESSONS IN AUTHENTIC VISUAL REPRESENTATION

Click on a country in purple or click on the name below to download the DE&I Imagery Toolkit

click on countries in purple to download the toolkit

BRAZIL* CANADA GERMANY HONG KONG JAPAN MEXICO** SINGAPORE UNITED ARAB EMIRATES UNITED KINGDOM UNITED STATES

Download the Toolkits now

Visuals impact the way we see ourselves—and the world around us. When inclusiveness and diversity are considered in imagery, we create authentic representation which can change perceptions, shift mindsets, and help create lasting connections between brands and consumers. Getty Images collaborated with Citi to develop Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Imagery Toolkits in 10 markets. The toolkits provide marketers, communicators, and creatives with country-specific data and insights that capture cultural and regional nuances, as well as actionable insights to create authentic and multi-faceted depictions of people in marketing and communications.

CLICK ON THE COUNTRY NAME TO DOWNLOAD THE DE&I IMAGERY TOOLKIT BRAZIL | CANADA | GERMANY | HONG KONG | JAPAN | MEXICO | SINGAPORE | UNITED ARAB EMIRATES | UK | US

The DEI Imagery Toolkits are a roadmap for incorporating authentic and multi-faceted depictions of people in global content, while also identifying biases and stereotypes through specific lenses of identity*:

Click on the country name below to download the DE&I Imagery Toolkit

Brazil Canada GERMANY HONG KONG JAPAN MEXICO* SINGAPORE UNITED ARAB EMIRATES UNITED KINGDOM UNITED STATES

*The Brazil DE&I Imagery Toolkit is available to download in English and Brazilian Portuguese **The Mexico DE&I Imagery Toolkit is available to download in English and Spanish

Link to a curated board of all toolkit visuals

• First‑of‑its‑kind Custom Toolkit and Training program being rolled out globally to support Citi marketers and communicators as they develop marketing and advertising campaigns.
• Digital Toolkit will also be made available to marketers and communicators worldwide, across brands and industries, to promote authentic visual representation in advertising.
• Nikki Darden , Head of Global Marketing Integration, DEI Brand Strategy, and Internal Brand Engagement, Citi
• Tristen Norman , Head of Creative Insights for the Americas, Getty Images
• Gwendolyn Pointer , Executive Vice President, GLAAD Media Institute
• Jamie Tredwell , Managing Director of Brand Partnerships, PRIDE Media

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When trying to demonstrate the difference between equity and equality, one image offers a particularly visual representation that captures the essence of the difference in an instant.

The image is a cartoon designed by artist Angus Maguire , that illustrates the difference between the two concepts by showing a side-by-side comparison of three people of varying heights watching a baseball match over a fence. 

The first side of the cartoon illustrates equality and shows the three people standing on equal-sized crates, leaving the shortest person unable to see the game and the tallest person with the most advantage. Next to that, illustrating equity, the cartoon shows each person standing on the amount of crates that they actually need in order to easily watch the baseball game. 

It’s an image that’s often shown in classrooms and at office team training sessions that best describes the difference between the two concepts without the use of words. While Maguire’s cartoon is a simple yet powerful demonstration, it leaves these questions unanswered: how do you define equity and equality using words? And why is it so important to know the difference between them? 

View this post on Instagram A post shared by Sheronda-Rae (@sherondarae)

Inequity or inequality are embedded in the world’s most pertinent issues , and understanding the difference between the two concepts is important for overall global development, and creating a world where the most vulnerable are protected and supported most effectively. 

What’s the difference between equity and equality?

Equality essentially means providing everyone with the same amount of resources regardless of whether everyone needs them. In other words, each person receives an equal share of resources despite what they already have, or don’t have. 

Equity is when resources are shared based on what each person needs in order to adequately level the playing field. 

What key facts should people know about these concepts?

• You can’t achieve equality without implementing equity.
• Inequality and inequity affect almost all of the United Nations’ Global Goals.

Why is it important to know the difference between them?

While they have two entirely different meanings, equity and equality work hand-in-hand and cannot be achieved without the other. Understanding the difference between the two brings us one step closer to achieving equality as the final outcome.

This means that in order for the world to reach a place where everything is fair, just, and equal, we need to prioritize equity and distribute resources based on who needs them most. In other words, to reach equality as an outcome, we have to tackle the causes of inequity within major issues.

Take vaccine nationalism as an example, where richer countries are hoarding more than enough COVID-19 vaccines to inoculate their populations, despite poorer countries not having vaccines to begin with. 

The fact that some countries will have more vaccines than others is an example of inequality in health care. The inequity lies in the fact that richer countries have the resources to acquire vaccines, whereas poorer countries do not. 

Reaching a place where all countries have enough vaccines would be achieving equality. In order to get there, richer countries have to share their resources with those in need and this act would be achieving equity. 

Without equity, inequality will persist and those who are most vulnerable will remain or become even more vulnerable; in contrast to those who are already most fortunate becoming even more so. 

Another example of where we can use equity to achieve overall equality is in the argument of "Black lives matter" vs "all lives matter".

While all lives have always mattered, Black lives have consistently been considered less important than others for centuries, resulting in Black people facing persistent struggles in their everyday lives because of this massive inequality. 

In order for us to reach an outcome where all lives can truly matter equally, Black lives need to be protected and supported in an equitable manner. 

What issues do equity and equality affect most?

There are evident inequalities globally in race, gender, sexual orientation, disabilities, education, economic status, and so much more. The lack of equity is at the core of so many global issues and understanding this is important to achieving overall equality as an outcome. 

We shouldn’t be aiming to treat people or distribute resources equally, we should aim to do so equitably in order to reach equality. For example, we cannot close the gender pay gap without tackling the inequity that is caused by men being considered more valuable than women in society. Similarly, we cannot defeat racial inequalities without approaching the inequity that considers people of color as lesser than white people. 

How do they both relate to ending global poverty?

Ending poverty for all means striving for justice and fairness, and this can only be done if we demand equity. Poverty is caused  by deep inequalities , and is deepened by situations where the rich become richer, and the poor become poorer. 

By distributing resources such as food, water, wealth, and more, as well as treating people equitably, we can bring poverty to an end and create a world that is truly equal. 

What action can we all take to achieve equity?

Educate yourself on what major inequalities there are in the world and how they affect your community. Knowing where the issues lie is important to understanding how to tackle them. You can do this by reading the news, researching social issues, and speaking to activists and community leaders in different spaces. 

Demanding equity is also at the core of Global Citizen’s Recovery Plan for the World campaign and mission to end poverty for all, you can join us and demand equity across multiple issues by taking action here . 

Global Citizen Explains

Demand Equity

Equity vs Equality: What’s the Difference?

March 19, 2021

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What's the Difference Between Equity and Equality?

People often use "equity" and "equality" interchangeably, but these are different concepts. Equality is the even distribution of resources across all people. Equity, on the other hand, is the distribution of resources based on need.

Does equity mean fairness? Yes, equity programs aim to even the playing field to ensure fairness and justice. Read on to learn the difference between equity and equality and what these concepts look like in action.

Maskot / Getty Images

What Does Equality Mean?

Equality is the access to and distribution of a set of resources evenly across people. Equity, in contrast, is the access to or distribution of resources based on need. Equality and equity are separate concepts. Both have to do with fairness and justice, but how society achieves them and what they ultimately look like are different. 

Here's a visual representation of how equity differs from equality:

Each person is given the same box in the equality drawing. The access to and distribution of resources is spread evenly across the population. The shortest person, however, still cannot see over the fence. The tallest person can see even higher over the fence than before.

The people are given either one, two, or no boxes to stand on in the equity drawing. The access to or distribution of resources is spread based on need. All three people can see over the fence at the same level, regardless of their height.

Why Is Equity Important?

You can't achieve equality without first achieving equity. Is "equality" an outdated term? No. Equality works if everyone needs the same thing. Equality is not enough, however, if you are trying to help people live better lives and rectify unfairness.

Equality assumes that everybody is the same and everybody needs the same thing. Some people need more, however, because they started with less. These people may not have what they need if everyone gets an equal shot or piece of something.

Equity vs. Equality Examples

Equity is both an ultimate goal and a process. Achieving equity means that no part of a person's identity (e.g., age, disability, gender, race , religion, and sexual orientation) gets in the way of their ability to thrive.

Here are some examples of equity vs. equality:

Being equitable means recognizing, taking accountability for, and changing the systemic and structural barriers that get in the way of people being able to thrive. The people affected by inequality must be meaningfully involved in the change process.

Some might think that those targeted efforts in and of themselves are racist and discriminatory, but that's not the case. The only way to correct abuse, lack of access, and neglect is to have a special intervention.

Equity Programs in Action

The call for more significant equity spans everything from education to work to politics. The systemic and structural barriers that prevent people from thriving can prevent them from being the healthiest they can be. Inequity in education, for example, might have prevented you from going to college. It can be difficult, as a result, to find a job that pays well and offers health insurance.

Equitable practices help the specific groups and people they target and society as a whole, even if you are not the direct target. That's especially true when it comes to health equity.

The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has identified several Healthy People 2030 objectives that it will target to achieve health equity. These include:

• Expanding access to safe drinking water
• Increasing the number of national surveys to collect data on LGBTQ+ populations
• Reducing the number of people with disabilities who delay care because of cost

Health equity challenges us to understand these disparities. There may not be enough healthful food or not as much access to care in a particular neighborhood. It can be hard to find transportation or take off from work to see a healthcare provider. These factors can make it difficult to manage a chronic (long-lasting) disease for some people.

How Can You Practice and Promote Equity?

Policy at every level dictates equity. Federal and state policies—policies in organizations, such as when picking board members—are essential. Your organization lacks a voice at the table for everyone if it's not entirely representative of its members.

There are things you can do to help promote equity, even on a personal level. Take stock of where you go to school or work, live, spend your free time, and worship. Think about who might be unfairly disadvantaged in these areas.

Consider what services you can bring to help promote equity. You might ask yourself questions like:

• Can you be an ally to help them feel better included, to make them better aware of opportunities and resources?
• Can you partner with them and be a friend? 
• Because of your status, can you become a leader in those domains that initiate change?
• Do you have support services that make things go better for people?
• Do you have the material capacity to create change in these spaces by funding programs and initiatives? 

Any degree of help toward equity matters, whether you only have the means to be a friend, confidant, or supporter. Raising awareness is also essential. Not everyone understands the difference between equality and equity. Talk meaningfully with people who are impacted by inequity, and check your biases. They are ultimately the experts of their experiences.

A Quick Review

Equality and equity are essential concepts regarding fairness and justice, but these are two separate concepts. Equality is the access to and even distribution of resources across people. Equity, on the other hand, helps even the playing field so everyone can thrive. This involves changing the systemic and structural barriers that disproportionally affect marginalized communities.

You can help inspire equality and equity in your community, even if that simply means being a friend or ally to someone who experiences disadvantages.

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Focusing on health equity .

United Nations. Recognizing and overcoming inequity in education .

Department of Health and Human Services. Health equity in healthy people 2030 .

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What is a DE&I dashboard?

A DE&I dashboard is an interface that provides a visual representation of company diversity, equity, and inclusion practices and outcomes. The dashboard reflects the company’s DE&I status by representing the data through graphs, charts, and other visuals that can be read at a glance. A DE&I dashboard reflects the status of the workforce in areas such as:

• Religious beliefs
• Neurodiversity
• National origin
• Soft skills

Why do you need a DE&I dashboard?

Rather than sifting through spreadsheets, metrics, and surveys, HR leaders can use a dashboard to provide a simple visual representation of the data. Clear and clutterless data depiction can show information in a way that persuasively tells a story to the target audience. A dashboard also enables leaders to monitor aspects of DE&I which they deem particularly important to company success. As a tracking tool, the DE&I dashboard can assist HR leaders in treating employees equally and building a diverse workforce through recruiting, hiring, and retention practices .

DE&I dashboard examples

Like people, diversity and inclusion dashboards come in all shapes and sizes. Whatever it looks like, a dashboard should offer clear data at a glance. Bob’s DE&I dashboard does just that, so you can create an informed DE&I strategy:

You can also examine data in detail with individual employee profiles:

How to implement a DE&I dashboard

HR leaders can integrate a diversity dashboard that promotes business success by focusing on these practices: 

• Design a transparent DE&I policy. Ensure that the basis for the company’s DE&I policy supports the fair and consistent treatment of everyone. Promoting certain individuals over others can reveal discrimination and favoritism. To actively promote DE&I, the company must define what DE&I means and the method for promoting it. 
• Adhere to the laws . According to the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and the UK’s Equality Act 2010 , employers cannot discriminate against employees due to race, religious beliefs, sex, age, disability, or genetic information. Thus, the company must recruit and hire personnel based on their character and competencies rather than these traits. 
• Focus on relevant data. To ensure the data in the dashboard will propel business goals, analyze which DE&I metrics are relevant to building a robust culture and boosting engagement and productivity. 
• Pay attention to detail. Weeding out duplicates in data and checking for inconsistencies in terminology is critical to maintaining accurate and reliable information in the dashboard. 
• Tell a simple story. Tailor the dashboard to directly reflect the data from the Excel spreadsheets so professionals can understand the information at a glance. A clear dashboard provides data visualization that enables the target audience to read the metrics, understand their implications, and make informed decisions based on the evidence.

What metrics to include in your DE&I dashboard

There are a wide variety of metrics that you can include in your DE&I dashboard. Which ones you do include depends on what your company’s priorities are for DE&I.

But, in general, there are some key metrics that are always useful to have: 

• Representation – This metric looks at the diversity of your workforce in terms of race, gender, age, sexual orientation, disability status, and forms of diversity. 
• Turnover rates – Tracking turnover rates among different demographics can help identify if there are issues with retention and engagement among certain groups.
• Pay equity – This measures any pay gaps among different groups in the workplace.
• Career development – Tracking the percentage of employees who have been promoted, as well as the demographic breakdown of those promotions, can help identify if there are certain groups who experience barriers to career advancement. 
• Supplier diversity – This measures how many minority-owned businesses your company uses as suppliers.  

DE&I dashboard best practices

To get the most out of your DE&I dashboard, focus on a few key metrics that align with your company’s goals. Otherwise, too much data can be overwhelming.

It’s important to regularly review your dashboard’s metrics to make sure that they’re still relevant and aligned with your company’s priorities.

The data you do focus on is what will enable you to take effective action at improving DE&I in the workplace . It can be the very foundation for positive change. Regularly updating and  analyzing the data can give you insights into trends that show where DE&I efforts are needed.

It can also be a good idea to make the diversity metrics dashboard accessible to all employees. This kind of transparency will show that your company is truly committed to improving diversity. 

Recommended For Further Reading

• Taking a people-forward approach to DE&I compliance in the US
• Supercharge DE&I in the workplace and measure your progress with Bob’s dashboards
• 10 ways your company can foster non-binary inclusion
• How to conduct a DE&I audit
• Diversity, equity, and inclusion (DE&I) policy example

How can a DE&I dashboard improve company culture?

Using a DE&I metrics dashboard can help companies monitor their practices to form the company culture they aim to build. The dashboard can help leaders identify areas for improvement while maintaining an intense awareness of DE&I. Practicing this due diligence can assist organizations in building and engaging a diverse workforce, treating employees fairly and transparently, and shaping the culture according to the company’s values .

Track DE&I data with Bob

With Bob, you have DE&I data in an easy-to-use dashboard that’s presented clearly. You can easily assess your DE&I successes and find any gaps or biases.

Bob doesn’t just make you aware of successes and areas for improvement. It allows you to break down metrics by age, gender, ethnicity, and more—so you can uncover the root of a problem and take effective action.

The dashboard is customizable too—you can choose how you want to group the data and track your progress over time. 

You’ll even receive alerts to take action on any compensation, bonus, and equity allocation gaps. That way you won’t just be tracking data, but taking practical steps that bring you closer to a truly diverse and inclusive workplace.

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Racial Equity and Social Justice

Create and sustain positive change with GIS

Advance racial equity, social justice, and sustainable, inclusive development

Map and better understand racial inequity

Organizations and individuals are leveraging the power of GIS to understand racial equity in communities and make more equitable decisions. GIS provides insight into patterns of inequality and can provide common understanding across communities to affect positive change.

Governments

National, regional, and local governments are using GIS to better engage communities and understand the impact of historic and present-day decisions and policies on those communities. Governments use GIS to address inequities and make plans to support equitable communities.

Community groups and nonprofit organizations are using mapping and spatial analysis tools to clearly identify issues of racial equity and social justice, share their organization’s mission and activities, and communicate the status and progress of their equity initiatives.

Businesses are using the power of location and GIS to apply a racial equity lens in their decision-making. GIS helps businesses better understand the communities they operate in and when, where, and how they can contribute to more equitable community outcomes.

GIS supports racial equity and social justice initiatives

Discover how GIS solutions foster greater understanding and empower equitable action.

• Engage communities
• Map and analyze equity
• Operationalize racial equity
• Manage performance

Engage communities and partners

Community engagement, outreach, and collaboration are critical to bringing communities together around issues of racial equity and social justice. Communities and their partner organizations shape the maps that tell their story. GIS makes maps easier to create and share, establishing a common understanding to take appropriate action.

Map and analyze inequities to gain insights

Visualizing the locations of marginalized populations, barriers to equality, and patterns of inequitable action in a GIS solution reveals the far-reaching impacts of policies and practices. Leveraging maps and the results of analyses empowers organizations and communities to create actionable plans and model impacts of positive change.

Operationalize racial equity best practices

Design and plan the equitable allocation and distribution of resources to alleviate burdens on disadvantaged communities. Enhance the delivery of services by using maps and spatial analysis. Collect the right location, demographic, and operational data needed to support racial equity.

Track and measure the impact of actions

Manage and analyze the performance of initiatives, services, and related data to understand and measure their impact. Use maps and dashboards to recognize opportunities to increase equity in your community.

Racial Equity GIS Hub

Visit the Racial Equity GIS Hub to find relevant data layers, user examples, training, solutions, and other resources to help in your work for racial equity.

Social Equity Analysis Solution

Organizations can use this solution to understand community conditions and evaluate actions for more equitable outcomes.

Police Transparency solution

The Police Transparency solution can be used to share information and communicate engagement efforts that build trust with the general public and community stakeholders.

Apply the racial equity workflow using ArcGIS

Discover how ArcGIS can play a significant role in helping organizations achieve racial equity by applying the racial equity workflow.

Stories of GIS for equity and social justice

Learn how others are already using GIS and mapping with a racial equity lens to advance social justice.

CalEnviroScreen: A Geographic Approach to Environmental Justice

Combining data related to pollution and people, a new online map explores California from an environmental justice perspective.

City of Charleston unveils racial equity tool

The City of Charleston used ArcGIS StoryMaps to create an interactive racial equity tool that contains visual representations of historic inequities.

A publisher’s journey using tech and geography

Paulette Brown-Hinds, founder of Voice Media Ventures and publisher of Black Voice News, explains how geospatial technology brings focus to equity and social justice issues.

For Equity and Environmental Justice, USC’s Manuel Pastor Knows Maps’ Power

Manuel Pastor, professor and director of the Equity Research Institute at the University of Southern California (USC), uses maps in his latest book to observe stark population shifts in a Los Angeles neighborhood.

Juneteenth 2021: Reflections and Resources

Explore key highlights from Esri’s Racial Equity Initiative and Hub, which was created in 2020 to provide GIS resources for those working to advance racial equity and social justice worldwide.

Creating an Environment for Racial Equity and Social Justice

Explore geographic approaches that state and local governments can use to address systemic racism and social injustices in their communities.

Tacoma Addresses Affordable Housing using GIS

The city of Tacoma, Washington, used a geospatial approach in their strategic planning process to address inadequate housing supply and increase housing affordability for their community.

Territorial Empathy Maps Racial Inequality to Take Action

Territorial Empathy applies location intelligence to identify outcomes linked to racial inequality in order to solve crises and create empathy.

Racial Equity and Social Justice Champions in GIS

Explore the inspiring work and stories of leaders who are advancing racial equity, social justice, and sustainable, inclusive development with GIS.

Esri Community

Join others in the GIS for Equity and Social Justice community to connect, collaborate, and share best practices on these topics. Ask questions or share your expertise.

Get GIS help from Esri to address inequity

For urgent GIS help responding to racial inequity, request support from Esri's Disaster Response Program.

Esri Nonprofit Organization Program

The nonprofit program provides access to the tools you need to bring location intelligence to your organization.

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The Impact of AI in Advancing Accessibility for Learners with Disabilities

AI technology tools hold remarkable promise for providing more accessible, equitable, and inclusive learning experiences for students with disabilities.

The impact of artificial intelligence (AI) on various areas of higher education—including learning design, academic integrity, and assessment—is routinely debated and discussed. Arguably, one area that is not explored as critically or thoroughly is the impact of AI on digital accessibility, inclusion, and equity. Several exciting technological developments in this space offer promise and optimism inside and outside of higher education. These advancements afford people with disabilities more equitable access to the same educational services and resources offered to students without disabilities. Ironically, students with disabilities—who stand to gain the most from emerging AI tools and resources—are often the most disadvantaged or least able to use them. Footnote 1 More concerning still is that few people in the disabled community have been asked to advise on the development of these products. A 2023 survey of assistive technology users found that fewer than 7 percent of respondents with disabilities believe there is adequate representation of their community in the development of AI products—although 87 percent would be willing to provide end-user feedback to developers. Footnote 2

As an accessibility advocate with a hearing impairment, I have been keenly interested in AI advancements that have the potential to provide people with disabilities more equitable access to educational content—especially since the release of ChatGPT and other large language models (LLMs). However, the use of AI in educational technology and instruction is hardly new. The Programmed Logic for Automatic Teaching Operations (PLATO) system was developed at the University of Illinois in the 1960s, and Jaime Carbonell developed SCHOLAR at Stanford University in the 1970s. Both computer learning tools are early forms of AI. Footnote 3 More contemporary edtech developments were introduced in the 2000s, such as ALEKS, Newton, and intelligent tutoring systems (ITS)—all popular, widely used student-facing AI courseware platforms. AI-generated automatic captions for web conferencing also became widely available in the early to mid-2010s, along with significant advancements in automatic speech recognition (ASR) technology. In 2009, Google introduced automatic captioning for YouTube videos. This groundbreaking development demonstrated the potential for using speech recognition to generate captions in real time or from recorded content. Footnote 4 Although this technology was initially panned for its inaccuracy and high error rate, it gradually influenced similar capabilities in other technologies, including web conferencing platforms.

The relatively recent release of LLMs has ushered in a surge in AI product development in this space. A few recently introduced edtech products and services are described below. While this list is not exhaustive, it captures capabilities that were thought impossible only a short time ago.

Automated Image Descriptions

For screen readers to accurately decipher the content of pictures, images, and diagrams, content authors must add descriptions, labels, or alt text (also referred to as alternative text). With the advent of LLMs, AI technologies can auto-generate these descriptions. Several tools that generate image descriptions are in early development and release. For example, Arizona State University recently launched a new AI-image description utility that uses ChatGPT-4o to analyze user-uploaded images and produce robust alternative text descriptions. This tool can also analyze and extract embedded text (i.e., text that is not machine-readable) from slides and images.

Accessibility advocate and developer Cameron Cundiff created a Non-Visual Desktop Access (NVDA) add-in that provides semantically rich image descriptions of any website, software product, or desktop icon. This tool uses the vision capabilities in the Google Gemini API to analyze and generate robust image descriptions that can be read back through the speech synthesizer in NVDA.

Astica.ai used its Vision API technology to develop an image description tool that generates captioned images, brand identification, and automatic content moderation. Users can upload complex images, and Astica.ai will automatically scan and identify elements and generate detailed alt-text descriptions.

Researchers at MIT developed VisText to help people generate captions and descriptions of complex charts and graphs—among the most challenging image types for assistive technology to describe. This tool is particularly useful for describing complex patterns and trends within chart data. Footnote 5

Darren DeFrain, an English professor at Wichita State University, led a team of developers that created Vizling, a mobile device app designed to make multimodal media, such as comics, maps, graphic novels, and art, accessible for blind and low-vision readers. Screen-reading products have difficulty parsing comics and graphic novels because their panel-based layout and use of speech balloons do not conform to predictable patterns.

Audio Description Generation

U.K.-based WPP is working with Microsoft to develop advanced audio description tools built on GPT4. This technology generates enhanced audio descriptions of user-uploaded videos and images. The company is also working collaboratively with the Rijksmuseum, the national museum of the Netherlands, to provide enhanced audio descriptions for its collection of nearly one million works of art, opening the door to libraries with extensive special collections. Footnote 6 This tool is expected to be available soon.

Support for Cognitive and Physical Disabilities

Microsoft UK recently introduced a series of vignettes showcasing how AI technology is being used to support people with various cognitive and physical disabilities. Nearly all of the featured use cases have direct applications in higher education.

In 2023, Microsoft partnered with OpenAI to develop Be My AI, a digital visual assistant within the Be My Eyes app. Be My AI is powered by OpenAI's Vision API, which contains a dynamic new image-to-text generator. Be My AI users can send images and ask questions via the Be My AI app. An AI-powered virtual volunteer answers any questions about the images and provides instantaneous visual assistance for a variety of tasks. Footnote 7 This technology provides enhanced opportunities for learners who are blind or have low vision.

Goodwin University in Connecticut is experimenting with AI products to support neurodivergent students. For example, the university recommends GitMind for assistive notetaking, mind mapping, and brainstorming. Footnote 8

The University of Central Florida, in conjunction with United Cerebral Palsy (UCP) of Central Florida, has developed "ZB"—an AI-driven socially assistive robot—as part of Project RAISE. Footnote 9 ZB is designed to help students with disabilities develop and improve their social skills and can even teach them how to code. "He hangs out with students in their classes, affirming them with positive messages," according to a Kansas City PBS news story. Footnote 10

Inclusive Design Support

GPT Accessibility CoPilot, developed by Joe Devon, co-founder of Global Accessibility Awareness Day (GAAD) and chair of the GAAD Foundation, is a tool that helps content developers and instructional designers by analyzing the code structure in web and content pages and matching it against WCAG 2.2 Success Criteria. If the code does not meet the criteria, Accessibility CoPilot provides suggestions for improving it.

Ask Microsoft Accessibility is a free tool that can be used by faculty and students to develop accessible course content. Users can type a question such as, "How do I make Excel files more inclusive?" and the AI assistant provides several solutions in near real time. This product is in early release.

Procter & Gamble is using an AI-assisted QR Code technology called Navilens to assist people who are blind or have low vision. Navilens can be used to locate products among dense shelving and read the instructions for use or list of ingredients. Footnote 11 This technology is also available to venues that require wayfinding and sign-reading services. Navilens is free to download and use, and the company is currently offering its proprietary codes to schools. The company has partnered with Microsoft to provide greater autonomy to users of a specialized headset developed by ARxVision. Footnote 12

Coding and Development Support

GitHub recently launched Copilot, a code completion tool developed in conjunction with Microsoft and OpenAI. GitHub Copilot Chat is a complementary chat interface that can help programmers learn about accessibility and improve the accessibility of their code. Footnote 13

Accessibility and training company Deque announced the release of Axe DevTools AI, a suite of tools that can be used by web developers to test and correct the digital accessibility of web content and other website elements. For example, Colorvision (just one of the tools in the suite) automatically checks for incompatible color contrast. At the Axe-Con 2024 conference, Gregg Vanderheiden, professor emeritus at the University of Maryland, predicted that AI-powered tools would provide near ubiquity to all digital products and that these products would adapt to the user's accessibility preferences in real time. Footnote 14

Translations, Captions, Lip Reading, and Speech Recognition

LLMs have made possible a variety of new translation, caption, lip reading, and speech recognition tools. For example, Microsoft Copilot+ PCs include live translation in nearly every language. Previously, this technology was available only in certain productivity products, such as PowerPoint; however, it is now poised for wide availability across various Microsoft productivity products. Footnote 15

SRAVI (Speech Recognition App for the Voice Impaired) is an AI-powered lip-reading app developed by Fabian Campbell-West, co-founder and CTO of Liopa, a software development company in Belfast, Ireland. SRAVI was initially developed to help ICU and critical care patients who have lost the ability to speak communicate more effectively with their families and health care providers. In 2023, the app was being tested on patients who had undergone a total laryngectomy procedure. Footnote 16 Liopa is a spin-out from Queen's University Belfast and its Centre for Security Technologies. Although the company was dissolved earlier this year, the SRAVI app is still available for download. Footnote 17

Ava is a mobile app that allows people who are deaf or hard of hearing to take part in group conversations in English, Dutch, French, German, Italian, or Spanish. The app provides limited conversational support for twenty spoken languages. People who are engaged in a conversation can open Ava on their phones and then speak as the app listens. Ava converts spoken words into text in nearly real time, rendering each speaker's words in a different color to help those who need to read along follow the chat. Footnote 18

The University of Illinois is working with Microsoft, Google, Amazon, and several nonprofit organizations on the Speech Accessibility Project, an interdisciplinary initiative "to make voice recognition technology useful for people with a range of speech patterns and disabilities." University researchers are recording individuals who have Parkinson's disease, Down syndrome, cerebral palsy, stroke, and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. Those recordings are used to train an AI automatic speech recognition tool. According to the Speech Accessibility Project website, "Before using recordings from the Speech Accessibility Project, the tool misunderstood speech 20 percent of the time. With data from the speech accessibility project, this decreased to 12 percent." Footnote 19

These are just a few of the exciting developments emerging from the intersection of AI and accessibility. Many people in the higher education community are rightfully cautious about the use of AI. However, numerous products and services that promise more equity and inclusion for people with disabilities are currently available or in development.

• Archy de Berker, "AI for Accessible Design," Medium (website), November 28, 2017. Jump back to footnote 1 in the text. ↩
• "Insights: AI and Accessibility," Fable (website), Accessed June 2024. Jump back to footnote 2 in the text. ↩
• University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign Grainger College of Engineering, "PLATO and the Genesis of Computer Engineering," Limitless Magazine, fall 2020; Wenting Ma, Olusola O. Adesope, John C. Nesbit, and Qing Liu, "Intelligent Tutoring Systems and Learning Outcomes: A Meta-Analysis," Journal of Educational Psychology 106 no. 4 (2014): 901–918. Jump back to footnote 3 in the text. ↩
• "Unusual Beginnings on Google Video; YouTube CC History pt.1," Datahorde (blog), August 28, 2020. Jump back to footnote 4 in the text. ↩
• Benny J. Tang, Angie Boggust, and Arvind Satyanaranan, "VisText: A Benchmark for Semantically Rich Chart Captioning," (presentation, 61 st Annual Meeting of the Association for Computational Linguistics, Toronto, Canada, 2023). Jump back to footnote 5 in the text. ↩
• Satya Nadella, "Closing Video: Satya Nadella at Microsoft Build 2024," Microsoft, May 21, 2024, YouTube video, 2:20. Jump back to footnote 6 in the text. ↩
• "Microsoft Joins Be My Eyes' Be My AI Beta to Take Accessibility of its Products to the Next Level," Be My Eyes (blog), Microsoft, accessed June 2024. Jump back to footnote 7 in the text. ↩
• "AI and Accessibility: How Goodwin Uses Artificial Intelligence to Support Neurodiversity," Goodwin University ENews, April 26, 2024. Jump back to footnote 8 in the text. ↩
• Nicole Dudenhoefer, "Real Results," Pegasus: The Magazine of The University of Central Florida, Spring 2024. Jump back to footnote 9 in the text. ↩
• Cuyler Dunn, "Technology Is Reshaping Education. Are Schools Ready?" Flatland, June 19, 2024. Jump back to footnote 10 in the text. ↩
• Sam Latif, "Sam Latif P&G NaviLens Accessible Code," September 4, 2023, YouTube video, 2:22. Jump back to footnote 11 in the text. ↩
• Jordana Joy, "ARxVision, Seeing AI, and Navilens Announce Partnership for Headset Programme," Ophthalmology Times Europe, April 1, 2024. Jump back to footnote 12 in the text. ↩
• Ed Summers and Jesse Dugas, "Prompting GitHub CoPilot Chat to Become Your Personal AI Assistant for Accessibility," GitHub (blog), October 9, 2023. Jump back to footnote 13 in the text. ↩
• Gregg Vanderheiden, "How AI Will Help Us Re-Invent Accessibility, Lower Industry Load, and Cover More Disabilities," (presentation, Axe-Con 2024, virtual conference, February 2024). Jump back to footnote 14 in the text. ↩
• Yusuf Medhi, "Introducing Copilot+ PCs," Official Microsoft Blog, Microsoft, May 20, 2024. Jump back to footnote 15 in the text. ↩
• "Liopa Wins Healthcare Contract with New AI Lip-Reading Technology," Institute of Electronics, Communications & Information Technology, Queen's University Belfast, October 18, 2021; Leigh McGowran, "Liopa's Lip-Reading App Is Being Tested on US Patients," Silicon Republic, January 11, 2023. Jump back to footnote 16 in the text. ↩
• Ryan McAleer, "Liquidator Appointed to Belfast Lip Reading Technology Firm Liopa," The Irish News, May 23, 2024. Jump back to footnote 17 in the text. ↩
• Jackie Snow, "How People With Disabilities Are Using AI to Improve Their Lives," NOVA (website), January 30, 2019. Jump back to footnote 18 in the text. ↩
• "Speech Accessibility Project," Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology Speech Accessibility Project, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, accessed June 2024. Jump back to footnote 19 in the text. ↩

Rob Gibson is Dean at WSU Tech.

© 2024 Rob Gibson. The content of this work is licensed under a Creative Commons BY-ND 4.0 International License.