2017 (1/3)
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My lightning talk from the beyond tellerrand Berlin warm-up on 2017-11-06: privacy as a core aspect of ethical UX design. "Don’t ask yourself 'does what we are doing require a cookie banner', but instead do something that respects the spirit of these privacy rules in the first place." -
Early November is beyond tellerrand time in Berlin - the cosy web and design conference hosted by Marc Thiele. Despite something like 500 attendants, this two-day event feels like a family reunion - and just like last year, the talks on offer were nothing short of mindblowing. Marc Thiele on his […]
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Faded Pictures reallifemag.com
The ever-brilliant Real Life magazine today features a story by Kristen Martin about the ephemerality of digital narratives when third parties are entrusted with their preservation. This is a story about the experience of accruing personal documentation in a space that is not taking serious care of […]
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Norbert A. Streitz' keynote at the World Usability Day Berlin 2017 was a great sample of critical enthusiasm for technology – an approach I share, yet sometimes struggle to justify as people see it as being against technological advances in general. -
I'm in awe! Just noticed that PrivacyBadger, the EFF's browser privacy tool, has already for a while been replacing all t.co URLs with the canonical URL of the real link target in my browser.
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"Reformatory" thinking, the idea that no individual should be subject to external control and limitation of their freedoms, is probably needed in 2017 just as much as it was in 1517. I spent a few hours on the 500th anniversary day of Luther's reformation to familiarize myself with the philosophical thoughts by theologist Johanna Haberer. -
Reading why techies stop to use technology they themselves have created highlights how a lack in consideration of the long-term impact of technological advancements can damage not just products and brands, but potentially society at large.
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When Werner Herzog makes a film about the internet, it can almost be expected to be a poetic journey rather than a cutting-edge report or a deeply opinionated perspective (even though, with his very special style to interrupt interviewees to make a point in his narrative, this does not mean […]
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The issue with tracking is not only one of obvious trackers but that, at least in theory, every piece of content loaded from other sites than the originating domain enables some degree of tracking. -
What is Sustainable Web Design? sustainablewebdesign.org
As we click away on our screens and devices, it’s easily forgotten all this consumes natural resources - directly or indirectly:
Bloated websites lead to slow load times, frustrated users and wasted energy.
This microsite lists four aspects of sustainable web design […] -
Smart Cities and Our Brave New World privacyinternational.org
Uh-oh. While generally enthusiastic of using technology for solving mankind’s problems, and with the global phenomenon of urbanisation amassing plenty of those, this analysis by Privacy International drawing a grim picture of the forces at play around much-hyped “smart cities” […]
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The Prototype Fund (PF), a government-funded programme run by the Open Knowledge Foundation (OKFN), invited to the Demo Day of projects from the first round of their programme, and a mixed crowd of participants and others assembled in a former-crematorium-turned-event-space in Berlin on the last […]
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In this pre-Snowden essay from 2007 (PDF), Daniel J. Solove presents one of the most thorough attempts to disprove the “I have nothing to hide” attitude towards privacy I have encountered:
the problem with the nothing to hide argument is the underlying assumption that […]
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The Future is (not) a Problem furtherfield.org
Niall Docherty and Dave Young look at the “crises” of our technological era as described and “solved” by the big tech giants of today and present their critical call for understanding these design fictions as what they are: narratives that aim to establish new markets for […]
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For the Moment reallifemag.com
Largely building upon queer theory and its understanding of temporality, “For the moment” by Benjamin Haber elaborates on yet another aspect of human life that the digital economy believes to be able to solve by introducing a simple binary. As it is being understood that the default of […]
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“Democracy” by David Bernet is an exceptional film. Who would think that the birthing of an EU law could provide enough drama to power a feature-length documentary, given that the Brussels bureaucracy machine is commonly seen as a closed, cold and robotic community out of touch […]
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When services harm people medium.com
Following introductory words on “service needs” and “business needs” vs. “user needs”, Maria Izquierdo and Martin Jordan showcase some instances where data is (even in breach of legal contracts) collected against users’ interest and with the potential to […]
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A day without Javascript sonniesedge.co.uk
It must have been in 2006, in my first full-time web-related job back at Satama Interactive that I was not only introduced to, but I myself actively promoted (in our then state-of-the-art web standards advocacy group, together with Harri Kilpiö and others) that any website should work without […]
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Taking Control of Your Digital Identity dmlcentral.net
This is great: while I see (university) teachers and course instructors elsewhere requiring students to join Facebook groups or the like, Howard Rheingold makes the participants in his “social media course” acquire a domain and server space for a self-hosted Wordpress instance as the […]
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I wrote about how our lives are under the control of tech companies & what it means. Please read it on your device. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/may/12/wake-up-amazon-google-apple-facebook-run-our-lives
A great article, can’t decide which parts to quote - pls read the whole thing. And start working on alternative futures tmrw (designers!)
I quit Facebook in 2013, and as a direct result of this, I have fallen out of touch with many friends. People have had babies, people have got […]
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"Privacy settings" in social web services are only a small part of the complex social phenomenon that is privacy; looking at the 2006 "Privacy paradox" and the 2014 "New privacy paradox" could help leading the discussion on privacy in tech from a far more sociological rather than mechanical perspective.
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Still Blogging in 2017 tbray.org
An hommage to the web, its freedom and why it still is the superior medium for self-expression online, by Tim Bray:
The great danger is that the Web’s future is mall-like: No space really public, no storefronts but national brands’ […]
