danny farra - About

Caption: A photo of me at Marymoor Park in Redmond, Washington (USA). I'm a Syrian American man; I have brown hair, light skin, a beard. I'm wearing a blue baseball cap with a pheasant on it and a blue hoodie.

My design philosophy

The goal of my design work is to elevate the quality of life for disadvantaged beings.

I love to approach a problem as if there are no constraints, otherwise we're not dreaming, and we might throw out a good idea too soon.

I am constantly thinking about accessibility/inclusion while I design. I ask myself "How will a screen reader interpret this?", "Is the contrast strong enough?", "Is this distracting?", "Is the font large enough?", "Does the page have structure?", "Is this button easy to reach? What if I have small hands?", "Is this text easy to understand? What if English is not my first language? What if it's translated to a physically longer language with more characters? Right-to-left language?"

I like to bring all relevant parties along for the design from the start; collaborating with users and engineers early on before creating any mocks instead of designing by myself.

I want the accessibility products I work on to be free for the user. According to the US Department of Labor, people with disabilities are excluded from the workforce or are unable to work, with 22.7% employed, compared to 65.5% of people without a disability. In emerging markets, 80% to 90% of persons with disabilities of working age are unemployed, whereas in industrialized countries the figure is between 50% and 70% (UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs).

"What do you think about AI?"

I have designed features that use AI. It is impressive and can be useful. It has accessibility benefits, like defining images without alt text for blind folks. I often use it for research, and ask it to format responses in a way that suits my brain (e.g. putting data in a table).

I am concerned with AI. There is an aggressive market rush towards AI, and it's the solution that has been prescribed to every problem in tech and business. There are very real inhumane military and environmental effects of AI, that we must collectively reject and be willing to boycott on behalf of.

I commit to being responsible in designing AI interfaces, and speaking loudly when it's not being used responsibly. We have to prioritize human life and the environment above all else, including a lucrative and effective AI solution.

Content I've put out in the world

Evolving Lookout: A progressive approach to designing accessibility apps. I wrote an article for Design.Google where I describe how we should go beyond compliance for accessibility apps.

"Let's talk about accessibility". I was a podcast guest on Google's "Search off the record" podcast.

Books I'm currently reading

A part of what informs my philosophy is what I read. I'm currently reading:

Decolonizing Design: A Cultural Justice Guidebook by Dori Tunstall

CAPS LOCK: How Capitalism Took Hold of Graphic Design, and How to Escape from It by Ruben Pater

The Hundred Years' War on Palestine by Rashid Khalidi

One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This by Omar El Akkad