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,…
Tag: 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 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…
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…
A New Chapter
In mid-March this year I will be starting a new job as Head of Digital at the National Centre for Universities and Business (NCUB). I will be working on a combination of new digital projects and the more corporate web/social media side of things as well. I will greatly miss my colleagues and work at the…
A Reading List for 2016
I read some great books in 2015, both fiction and non-fiction. My highlights include: David Graeber’s Utopia of Rules, Julia Blackburn’s Threads: The delicate life of John Craske and Neal Stephenson’s Seveneves But, I always have a long list of books I want to read; my reading to-do list. So, I thought I would begin to…
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 