This blog post by the German privacy blog “Datenschutz-Notizen” poses more questions than it provides answers, but I find it noteworthy for bringing together three of my core interests: legal design, accessibility and privacy. The text refers to a court ruling from Italy, where the […]
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This story starts with a story of conscious technology non-use: an average American, so upset by the opaque tracking of his everyday life, that he decides to pull the plug in an act of self-defence:
Crum, a charming individual who shares his opinions freely, isn’t […]
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What if you woke up tomorrow, and saw that you were blocked from Google. You’d probably be confused, right? You didn’t think you’d done anything wrong. Why would you be denied access to your Google account? Suddenly not being able to use your email, have the ability to work on […]
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There’s no such thing as an edge case. Only inflexibility in how a system is designed.
Instead of using “edge case” designation to dismiss user needs, think about what you still need to learn about them. Just bc their needs are currently not met doesn’t mean they’re “edge”.—Eileen Wang -
At first sight, this article may not have much to do with accessibility or inclusive design. Yet, after reading it, I suddenly realized how even my own thinking, deliberately tuned to think in an inclusive, prejudice-free way wherever possible, has been biased by a preconception of something I do not fully understand. […]
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When people ask me what I do as a UX researcher my answer is usually along the lines of “I watch people struggle with technology without judging them.” And I’ve watched hundreds of people struggle with technology.
In an article that neatly brings together UX […] -
Sometimes, an article from 18 years ago can still be of great relevance and inspiration. That’s what happened when I encountered Clay Shirky’s essay on “Situated software” (by way of an equally interesting personal project by Robin Sloan) today. […]
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It’s 2022, and 36.8% of respondents (not a representative survey, but assuming the demographic of Sara Soueidan’s Twitter followers to be dominantly web developers: even more shocking) don’t know what Progressive Enhancement is. This short intro by Chris Ferdinandi, cheekily […]
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This is a 9 years old article. Yet, while the quantitative numbers may have shifted in one direction or the other, the qualitative statements stand unchanged: it cannot – and must not – be assumed that all JavaScript code is executed for every visitor of a website. […]
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Derek Sivers lays out the arguments for creating digital files in plain text format whenever feasible. This is at the core of building a strategy for resilient digital assets – while fancy formats come and go, a plain text file written on MS-DOS in the 1990s would still be easily readable […]
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Stuart Langridge presents this simple, yet convincing flow chart to illustrates all the various things that may go wrong as users request a web site requiring JavaScript code. […]
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Molly Holzschlag called for more attention to the UNESCO’s ROAM principles, a United Nations policy framework for an internet for all: Rights, Openness, Accessibility to all, Multistakeholder participation.
Never once can I recall a discussion with any Web colleagues about The ROAM Principles. They are a framework for Internet (and #Web) universality and we need them. We're too fragmented and without unity and discourse, we will lose what's left of the idealism and hope born of Web.
This Miss Molly 2022-02-19 […] -
Having referenced Dima Yarovinsky’s exhibition installation “I agree”, visualizing the overwhelming size of web platforms’ “terms and conditions”, on various occasions, this visualization by Nicholas LePan struck a nerve. It naturally lacks the physical […]
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This academic paper is based on a systematic content analysis of legal texts, building a statistic on how often flowcharts and similar visualizations were used to make legal concepts more approachable. The result – astonishingly, but maybe not surprisingly, an almost complete absence of […]
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This looks like a very interesting impulse for more inclusive UX research:
Fable released a tool called the Accessible Usability Scale , which we have made freely available. It is specifically meant for conducting research with assistive technology users. The AUS is a 10-item […]
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While WCAG 2.0 and 2.1 are the current standards demanded by many legislative frameworks, work is well under way towards the next version, WCAG 2.2, which can also be expected to become the overall baseline at some point. Hence, this review of the drafted requirements is an interesting read. For UI […]
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As with any fields of design, confirmation bias can stop us from seeing the reality. Eric Eggert points out how (in this field of design, too, one may add) only verifying solutions with real users – in this case people with disabilities – will lead to good results. […]
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Wolfie Christl aka CrackedLabs is known for his meticulous investigations of surveillance adtech’s inner workings. This latest research report, on the dangers and perils related to behavioral advertising in the online gambling context, is no exception. Methodologically built around the […]
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John Maeda’s commentary on an essay by Bill Buxton writes out something that is tacit knowledge to many designers, but that deserves attention from a strategic perspective:
The difference between a sketch and prototype is a matter of where you want to put risk. To make a sketch presents a lower risk, but embodies higher risks because the sketched idea may be untested and unviable. To make a prototype presents a higher risk (due to production costs), but embodies loser risks because the prototyped idea can be tested for viability.
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The history of communication technology is not just a collection of – often curious – inventions and developments, but also a valuable reminder that even most things we consider "innovative" today likely have roots far back in time. A recent blog post motivated me to finally write up one of these historical curiosities I encountered in the most unlikely of places: the countryside outside Berlin. -
Not just due to my long-standing research interest in technology non-use, but as the ever-critical luddite in regards to “social media” adoption, I always enjoy reading so-called “silo-quit” stories.
I was moved to retire from engaging with my social drug of choice, Twitter. After tens of thousands of tweets across more than a decade, I vowed to stop responding to – let alone arguing with – strangers in that particular thunderdome of despair.
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Initially invented as minimalist solutions to circumvent the social media platforms' limitation of external links so-called "link in bio" platforms appear to be slowly evolving into complex tools to build a personal online presence.
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Co-written by 12 authors, this handbook builds on and makes tangible the Responsible Data Forum’s working definition for “responsible data”. The mission, stated in the introduction chapter, is to illustrate where the responsibilities in dealing with data are and present strategies to deal with that responsibly. -
Starting with an analogy to tech in orienteering sports, Lawrie Phipps looks at the excluding factor of the growing reliance of a certain stack of technology:
[…] practices in education have shifted, and we now have more technology as a default. That technology will have a […]
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She asked each student where they’d saved their project. Could they be on the desktop? Perhaps in the shared drive? But over and over, she was met with confusion. “What are you talking about?” multiple students inquired. Not only did they not know where their files were saved — […]