We are excited to welcome Annie Jean-Baptiste, Google’s Director of Product Inclusion & Equity, to our Judging Academy! Jean-Baptiste’s advocacy for marginalized voices and her fight to carve out dedicated spaces have cemented her as a leading expert in product design inclusivity. She is the author of “Building for Everyone,” a guide on applying a human-centric and inclusive lens when designing products. Jean-Baptiste pushes past small accommodations and calls creators to make with everyone in mind—not for one type of user, but for every type.
We spoke with her to get a close look at her mission to make inclusivity a default, and to peek at what’s on her rubric for the 28th Annual Webby Awards! Find out what level of work she’s expecting to see this season.
For those who don’t know, tell us a little about your background.
I’m the author of Building for Everyone, a book about balancing the business and human case for inclusion. I also lead the product inclusion & equity team at Google, which focuses on bringing an inclusive lens throughout the end-to-end product development and design process.
I’m passionate about building products that make historically marginalized users feel seen, validated, uplifted and thought of.
Annie is also the Director of Product Inclusion at Google. She leads Product Inclusion strategy across the company and consults with various Alphabet companies, including consultation, communications, scale and research and created the movement over 6 years ago as a way to ensure historically marginalized users felt validated throughout the product design process.
Outside of work, I’m passionate about mentorship and creating spaces for those at the margins, like creating an equine camp for historically marginalized kids or leading Equity Army, a community of dreamers and doers.
What particular expertise are you bringing to the Academy?
I bring Inclusive and Equitable product design and radical empathy to the academy.
What are you most looking forward to about the 28th Annual Webby Awards? What are some new or fresh ways you’re excited to see entrants harness the Internet and technology?
I’m so excited for voices that have historically been at the margins to be uplifted and celebrated!
What are some of the most important factors that define great digital work?
Authenticity and uniqueness.
What’s on your rubric for this year’s competition? What are you looking for among entries?
Ensuring work represents the world around us across multiple dimensions of identity and the intersections of those dimensions.
Enter to showcase your work to industry-shaping experts
Don’t miss your chance to showcase your creativity to the best in the Industry. When you enter, you gain exposure from industry-leading professionals who drive the creative, technical and professional progress of the Internet. To position your work in front of them—and participate with early entry pricing—submit your work here.
Enter to draw the eyes of the most innovative minds in the business to your work. Submit your best projects by the Final Entry Deadline on Friday, December 15th!
