Why I’m Not Using an Average Chair

This week, I listened to Maha Bali talk about digital inequities, and she used an analogy that really stuck with me. She talked about how, in the past, pilot chairs in planes were designed based on the “average” measurements of all pilots. The problem was that because nobody is actually average, the chairs didn’t really fit anyone perfectly. What they needed wasn’t an average chair, but a flexible one that could be adjusted.

Most software we use today is an average chair. It’s built for a persona that doesn’t exist, forcing us to work within boundaries we didn’t choose. Bali points out that these “black box” algorithms, the ones that decide what you see or how you’re tracked, are often biased because they’re trained on these averages that don’t actually exist.

This is exactly why I’m doing my Deeper Dive Inquiry in Excel.

Proprietary habit trackers are average chairs. They come with pre-set categories and invisible tracking that I didn’t ask for. By building my own tool, I’m making my own adjustable chair. I’m the one who decides what gets measured and how the logic works. Digital literacy isn’t just about learning to sit in the chairs companies give you. It’s about realizing you have the agency to build your own.