Earlier this month the Ford Foundation published Roads and Bridges: The Unseen Labor Behind Our Digital Infrastructure. Written by Nadia Eghbal, the report addresses the challenges of sustaining our digital infrastructure: Everybody relies on shared code to write software, including Fortune 500 companies, government, major software companies and startups. In a world driven by technology,…
Category: technology
Not on Your Keyboard ✂ ♫ ☠
You are desperately trying to finish something important, and you have to include an unusual character that’s not on your keyboard. You know like a ¿ or a ©. What do you do? Well, now there’s Not on Your Keyboard. What, you say, is Not on Your Keyboard? Notonyourkeyboard.com lists characters that aren’t on your keyboard and copies…
On Humane Technology
As technology seeps deeper into our everyday lives, it’s increasingly important to make sure that we challenge assumptions about its role in our lives, and the philosophical and ethical issues of technology. Recently, there have been some interesting articles on how technology can be designed to quietly fit into our lives. This technology is described as Humane or…
The Seductive Lie of the Literature of Creativity
The literature of creativity describes the heroic pathways of discovery and invention. You know the stories: The post-it note and Swiffer to the music of Dylan and the art of Monet. These creations form the heart of gripping non-fiction accounts that provide a narrative around the individual achievements and miraculous inspirations that have delivered disruptive new ideas and technologies….
The Politics of Bitcoin – A Reading List
I am increasingly fascinated by Bitcoin, the crypto-currency, and thought it might be useful to begin compiling a list – a reading list – of articles and posts on bitcoin and the distributed ledger Block Chain. Specifically, these articles relate to the politics and social/political implications of the technology. Over the next few days and weeks I’ll…
Twitter’s Missing User Manual
In a recent tweet, Eric Stoller shared a wonderful resource: Twitter’s missing user manual. Twitter’s missing user manual [***share this with everyone!***] https://t.co/glwMrxdvfh — Eric Stoller (@EricStoller) March 7, 2016 The ‘manual’ (it’s really an extended blog post) aims to clarify and highlight all those additional bits of functionality or clever tricks that aren’t immediately obvious…
Redesigning Government
I recently came across this fantastic video of Mike Bracken (ex. Head of GDS and currently CDO at Co-Op Digital) and Tim O’Reily (O’Reily Media). It’s worth watching to find out more about how design and user research is transforming government services and systems. It’s also really interesting to hear Mike talk about his current…
What’s in a Name? Digital Engagement or Digital Inclusion
The Government Digital Inclusion team have recently announced their move into the Department for Culture Media and Sport (DCMS). As part of the move the move the Inclusion team also revealed a change in their name. A change from Inclusion to Engagement. This change in name made me think about the terms used to address digital…
Bookmarked: Report – From Bricks to Clicks
Today sees the release of The Higher Education Commission’s report entitled: From Bricks to Clicks – The Potential of Data and Analytics in Higher Education As the authors describe it, the report: undertakes a review of the current data landscape across English higher education institutions, looking at data collections, learning analytics and the current barriers…
Dark Patterns: Fighting User Deception
Dark patterns subtly encourage you to do something you might not want to do, to do something you’re not even aware that you’re doing. Dark Patterns are User Interfaces that are designed to trick people. I wanted to post a link to this site: darkpatterns.org. It’s well worth taking a look at, especially at some of…
Liquid Infrastructure
In his extended article* – What Is Code? – Paul Ford has written a wonderful description of our current, culturally specific circumstances of coding and project culture. Now, let me preface what I’m about to say with the plea that you read Ford’s essay if you haven’t already done so. It’s a wonderful read. The piece is as much…
benshowers 