Decentered users are the groups most at risk and under-supported in the relevant context. In the DFM methodology, technology design is not separate from the broader historical, political, social, and institutional contexts that surround and impact human interactions. Through understanding and establishing who is most impacted by existing power structures, we can also understand who would most likely be harmed when technology is weaponized.

Decentered groups are not just marginalized — they are also usually the most criminalized, people whom the state not only fails to offer protection but actively persecutes. Moreover, decentered communities are often located outside the US and EU and many of the harms and abuses embedded in our tech are rooted in capitalistic, hetronormative, racist paradigms that also are byproducts of western-centrism.

To radically alter this and create safer, better tech, design parameters must be rooted in the needs and knowledge of decentered communities.

The name decentered plays with the notion that these users should not be at the margins but instead hold central power – they have not only been displaced from the center due to broader systems at play, but also by the companies and technologies. The term calls for the de-centered to be moved to their rightful place at the center of these processes. It challenges the notions of “edge cases” or “outliers” in a human context who have become an afterthought.