While taking some time off to enjoy the holidays, I stumbled upon an online article describing a very public and very embarrassing software flaw in the latest HP Computers. The problem came to light in a recent YouTube video.
Shortly after the video became a YouTube hit, HP released a statement: “…We believe that the camera might have difficulty ‘seeing’ contrast in conditions where there is insufficient foreground lighting.”
I don’t believe HP is racist. I’ve had several friends of various ethnic backgrounds who’ve actually worked at the company. Still the flaw does indicate a problem with the creation of this particular application and its default settings: quite simply, the team may have been too insulated.
If the programmers tended to have lighter skin tones, no flaw would appear during testing. Still its obvious that the application fails to successfully work with darker skin tones. This could have been solved by having a tester with darker skin tones earlier in the process.
It is easy to point the finger at HP, placing blame, but sadly we often do the same thing as student leaders. I’m regularly surprised by how our campus organizations and state organizations do not reflect the people they serve. I’m not saying that representation needs to match demographics, but representation should seek out to SERVE those demographics.
Next time you wonder why a project or event wasn’t successful, ask yourself if you planned the event for people who were just like you or the diversity that exists within your campus and organization?