Jan 2018 (p. 1/2)

When Trading Track Records Means Less Privacy

eff.org

Just anonymising data does not mean it is no longer personal data - more often than not it needs to be treated with similar care as data that carries individual identifiers.
2018

a11y Issues, by a11y.rocks

issues.a11y.rocks

issues.a11.rocks is a website project pointing out a11y failures of big web sites. On their Github page, the authors share their motivation:
On the web platform, technologies and guidelines have been built so we can build a web that includes […]
#design-for-all
2018

Every Step You Fake: A Comparative Analysis of Fitness Tracker Privacy and Security

citizenlab.ca

Following the Strava heatmap debacle, I encountered this study by the University of Toronto’s Citizen Lab via Twitter:
Fitness tracking devices monitor heartbeats, measure steps, sleep, and tie into a larger ecosystem of goal setting, diet […]
2018

Ethical Ads — Read the Docs 1.0 documentation

docs.readthedocs.io

Readthedocs.io, a popular platform for creating and publishing software documentation, documents their responsible approach to online ads on their service:
EthicalAds respect users while providing value to advertisers. We don’t track you, sell […]
2018

#DataProtectionDay 2018

All personal data stored may eventually pose a risk to somebody. Three stories of how data stored or shared can have unwanted consequences.
2018

CSPE Booklet: Sign up, Log in, Opt out

dataprotection.ie

The Irish Data Protection Commissioner published a brochure with learning materials aimed at secondary schools.
The aim of the resource is to raise awareness amongst young people of their rights to privacy, the importance of taking control of […]
2018

UX for users with cookies disabled - a neat example

The design takes into account privacy-conscious users with cookies disabled. When closing the notification popup, the user learns that by using an alternative URL, they can reach a version of the site without the notification
2018

Without the humanities, great tech cannot exist. Here's why

weforum.org

Tracy Chou starts off by quoting David Foster Wallace:
The most important education we can receive, Wallace goes on to explain, “isn’t really about the capacity to think, but rather about the choice of what to think […]
#design
2018

EDPS Ethics Advisory Group: Towards a digital ethics

edps.europa.eu

An important report by the Ethics Advisory Group (EAG) of the European Data Protection Supervisor (EDPS):
This report seeks to propose terms and concepts that contribute to a constructive debate about the future of ethics in a full-fledged […]
2018

Digital Standard

thedigitalstandard.org

The “Digital Standard”, openly maintained under a CC-BY-4.0 license on Github, is an ambitious project to establish shared values in development of software-based products:
Our goals are to enable consumer organizations to test […]
2018

Gestalt principles in UI design

medium.muz.li

With the byline of “How to become a master manipulator of Visual Communication”, Eleana Gkogka provides a neat overview of the Gestalt laws and their importance in UX design:
It’s clear by now, visual design and psychology are […]
2018

Note, published 23 Jan 2018

The GDPR: not a revolution, but an evolution - its core is similar to the 1995 directive, but now enforced more strictly; figure from “The GDPR is a call to practice ethical design”
2018

Do I Own My Domain If You Grade It?

edsurge.com

I’d never heard of the Domain of One’s Own initiative or similiar before. This is a fantastic, almost revolutionary idea, and actually makes one think whether setting up a personal website with a personal domain shouldn’t be part of media […]
2018

Apps, Trackers, Privacy, and Regulators

haystack.mobi

Particularly relevant for privacy design is the authors' category of ATS-C: third-party services that may process unique identifiers despite their primary purpose is not tracking as such.
2018

Personal Data Processing for Behavioural Targeting: Which Legal Basis?

papers.ssrn.com

Pre-GDPR research paper concluding that consent is always needed for behavioural tracking;
This paper argues that in most circumstances the only available legal basis for the processing of personal data for behavioural targeting is the data […]
2018

Laws of UX

lawsofux.com

A beautifully designed collection of laws that apply in UX (e.g. Fitts’ law, and some of the gestalt laws), with introductory texts on their origins and links to related resources. By Jon Yablonski. Update: In 2020, Jon Yablonski published an extended […]
2018

MailChimp leaks your email address

shkspr.mobi

Summarizing this classic oversight by a major newsletter service provider, as responsibly disclosed by Terence Eden: The referrer string of a browser coming from a newsletter contains the ID of the subscriber Website admin can open the “Manage […]
2018

The GDPR is a call to practice ethical design

Internalizing the history and philosophy behind the General Data Privacy Regulation is key for every designer in privacy-critical contexts. The GDPR is not a law that specifies detailed demands for consent forms or the like—it is a change agent for embracing ethical principles in dealing with personal data, across the EU and beyond.
2018

CrookedStyleSheets: Webpage tracking only using CSS (and no JS)

github.com

In this proof-of-concept, Jan Böhmer demonstrates how rather fine-grained tracking can be implemented by CSS-only: user clicks browser detection font detection hover duration input detection As the author states, this form of frontend tracking is […]
2018

#A11YBerlin meetup series kicked off with two great talks

The newly established Accessibility Meetup Berlin had a great start in January, featuring speakers looking at the topic from two different angles.
#design-for-all
2018

Je décide de ce qui concerne ma vie privée

jedecide.be

The Belgian DPAs information website on privacy for young people (in French/Dutch) provides information material for young people and parents on how to protect their privacy. A nice example of educational material in the field of online privacy. Also has a […]
2018

Third-Party Scripts | CSS-Tricks

css-tricks.com

Third-party scripts are probably the #1 cause of poor performance and bad UX on the web.
Chris Coyer collects a range of sources that explain why third-party scripts on websites – and handing control over them to the marketing […]
2018

Reposting a Tweet by Smashing Magazine

twitter.com

Amen! "While I feel that performance has finally found its place on the agenda in web projects, it’s about time to push privacy, accessibility and ethics to the spotlight as well. Still way too often forgotten or dismissed for the sake of business."
2018

Piwik is now Matomo

twitter.com

Free/libre Google Analytics -alternative Piwik is now “Matomo”: no matter the name, the tool remains #1 choice for independent web analytics. #GDPR
2018

GDPR consent design: how granular must adtech opt-ins be?

pagefair.com

The wireframes presented in this article should make every UX designer cringe: Johnny Ryan of PageFair embarks on a step-by-step journey through various GDPR requirements and Article 29 Working Party opinions/guidelines, illustrating how the wide range of […]
2018