Category: Society
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Meeting up with Pulp in the years 2023 and 2024
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I went to just two concerts in 2023, and they were both of Pulp’s performances in Scotland.
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Britpop, braindance and broken politics — How 1990s optimism became passé
Britpop has been having a moment again this summer, prompting investigations into why the scene fizzled out. The conventional explanations are unconvincing. Electronic music tells us why.
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The gradual death of AM radio takes with it a curious part of Britain’s psyche
1215 AM. Not quarter past midnight, but a radio frequency familiar to generations (although perhaps not any of the younger ones). Today it has stopped broadcasting. As AM radio slowly disappears, a bit of British folklore goes with it.
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One twit can make a service a dodo
I have complicated feelings about the apparent imminent demise of Twitter in the hands of a reckless owner.
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How often do YOU buy Valentine’s Day gifts?
How often do *you* buy Valentine’s Day gifts? More often than once a week? Less often than once a month? Stop making people complete terrible surveys that you won’t even be able to interpret the results of!
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Awooga! The metaverse was better 29 years ago
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What’s most surprising about the metaverse is just how lacking in ambition it is. This is a half-hearted rehash of a 30-year-old idea.
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Be usable, not consistent, not uniform
Consistency is often seen as a slam-dunk argument in favour of an initiative. But if you don’t know what you want to a design to be consistent with — and why — then consistency risks confusing your users.
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Design approaches aren’t sufficient to be human-centred
Many designers talk about user-centred design. But design approaches alone aren’t sufficient to ensure we are human-centred. Design approaches can be used carelessly — or even maliciously — to centre the designer and sideline the user.
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Pace layers in experience design — Stabilise innovation by understanding people’s needs
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Innovation falls flat when it doesn’t respond to a human need. Use human-centred approaches to understand people’s fundamental motivations and needs. These are the stabilising forces for innovation.
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Why I talk about human-centred approaches
It is difficult to find a phrase that exactly describes my work and the way I approach it. I’ve started to talk about human-centred approaches. This post explains what I mean by that.
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Beginner’s guide to content design
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Many people are intrigued by content design but unsure if it’s the right fit for them. So here is my beginner’s guide to being a content designer. Find out why it might be a better fit for you than you might think — and why it might not be.
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How to make this winter not totally suck, according to psychologists — Sigal Samuel — Vox
I really like the evidence-based advice in this article. It shows how the pathway to true happiness is to, in a way, forget about yourself. Instead of thinking about the myriad negative feelings you want to avoid and the myriad things you can buy or do in service of that, think about a single organising […]
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The UX sense of service — Carrie Neill interviewing Cyd Harrell — dscout
This interview with the civic tech leader Cyd Harrell covers interesting ground around user experience, including: the differences between the public and private sectors making privacy a priority avoiding “attention theft”, where we bombard users with more and more notifications
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Vote by mail: Mistakes are too easy — Kara Pernice — Nielsen Norman Group
An analysis of the design of postal voting materials in the US. Where are all the UX designers and researchers, service designers, and content writers and editors when voting process and materials are designed? Not there or simply beaten by bureaucracy or deadlines? A good reminder that user experience goes way beyond technology and even […]
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James Middlemass & Co — Boys’ Outfitters — found under the floorboards
During our kitchen renovation, we found this under the floorboards. It is a “Boys’ Outfitters” catalogue for James Middlemass & Co. We think it dates from around the 1880s.
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The woman whose teapots were destroyed on Changing Rooms — Amelia Tait — The Waiting Room
The rumours were true — Changing Rooms is coming back, 20 years on from its heyday. I don’t really remember watching it very much, but I have been struck by how much people have been talking about it recently. The TV show clearly struck a chord. And why not, when you can reminisce about stories […]
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Consider the tomato — Eric Bailey — Thoughtbot
Tomatoes are a bit of an ontological mess. Why information architecture is difficult, explained by tomatoes — and not just the fruit/vegetable thing you might already be thinking.
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When you browse Instagram and find former Australian prime minister Tony Abbott’s passport number — Alex Hope — The Mango Zone
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A highly entertaining read about how someone used a photo of a boarding pass posted by Tony Abbott on his own Instagram account to find out the former Australian prime minister’s personal details including his passport and phone number. Alex Hope embarks on an adventure to find out whether he broke the law, figure out […]
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Groundbreaking report reveals racial bias in English football commentary — Sachin Nakrani — The Guardian
A very interesting-sounding study has analysed English language football commentary from seven broadcasters and 80 live matches. RunRepeat ratio-adjusted its numbers to account for the fact there were 1,361 comments about lighter-skinned players and 713 about darker-skinned players and found the former group more widely praised for intelligence (62.60%), hard work (60.40%) and quality (62.79%). […]
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Lockdown projects — Month 3
As lockdown eased, small craft projects made way for some much larger home improvement projects.
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Service design and the Mario complex
At Service Design in Government, I discovered that service designers see themselves as Mario. But that is an unrealistic model for what service design should be.
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A white woman, racism and a poodle — Cynthia Franks — FranklyWrite
How a white woman discovered what it’s like to constantly be spuriously pulled over by the police, because she had a black dog. One day, sitting at a restaurant having breakfast with my Dad; our old neighbor came in and said, “There’s a black man stealing your van. He’s behind the wheel right now.” I […]
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Struggling with vision loss — Stewart Lamb Cromar — Interactive Content
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My colleague Stewart Lamb Cromar has written about how a recent deterioration in his vision has impacted his work, and highlights the importance of our ongoing work around accessibility.
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Currency in colour: a visual guide to 157 banknotes around the world — Salman Haqqi — money.co.uk
A fun analysis of the world’s banknotes, their colours and contents: who and what features on them, and where.
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Microsoft’s robot editor confuses mixed-race Little Mix singers — Jim Waterson — The Guardian
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How about this for dystopia? MSN have replaced human news editors with a robot powered by Microsoft artificial intelligence technology. The problem is, it has already begun making racist decisions. And then, in case you thought the story wasn’t already absurd enough, this: In advance of the publication of this article, staff at MSN were […]
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Spaces — Parliamentbook
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A beautiful set of diagrams documenting the designs of parliamentary halls from across the world.
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Today we’re going to learn the correct names for the different parts of a London bus stop — diamond geezer
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A delightfully geeky breakdown of how a London bus stop is designed and built. It got me thinking of design systems.
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There will be no “back to normal” — Nesta
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This is more than a month old. In terms of the coronavirus outbreak, that’s an eternity. But I still found this list of possible future scenarios interesting and thought-provoking. It also comes with the major caveat that predicting the future is a mug’s game at the best of times, never mind during these times. This […]
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Ignore the customer experience, lose a billion dollars (Walmart case study) — Good Experience
This case study would be seen by some as a reason not to understand users at all. “If I asked users what they wanted, they’d say faster horses. Hurr hurr.” In fact, like the idea of faster horses, it demonstrates how important it is to understand your users in the right way, not just pay […]
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Inside the 46-year journey to bring Aretha Franklin’s ‘Amazing Grace’ doc to life — David Browne — Rolling Stone
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This film took almost 50 years to hit the cinema screens because the filmmakers inexplicably failed to use a clapperboard, making it impossible to edit until digital technology arrived. The director was Sydney Pollack, who won 11 Oscars throughout his career. “There were thousands of pieces of film with no edit points, and they were […]
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Undemocratising user research — Saswati Saha Mitra — UX Collective
This piece really challenged my thinking. In my job I am currently trying to figure out ways to make quality user research scale across the organisation in a sustainable manner. It’s like one of those triangular diagrams outlining three goals: “you can have two of these things”. Working in such a large organisation, central resources […]
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We’re hiring a Senior Content Designer — Website and Communications Blog
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The University of Edinburgh Website and Communications team is hiring a Senior Content Designer. Come and join my team! If you’re passionate about using evidence-based approaches to create great content that meets users’ needs, we want to hear from you. Read the blog post to learn more about the position and how to apply.
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UK infosec experts flag concern over NHSX contact tracing app — Laurie Clarke — NS Tech
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This is the sort of reason why I don’t trust the state with my data as much as I trust many private companies. Apple and Google have worked together (itself a minor miracle) to develop a method of contact tracing that does not collect personal data and does not invade people’s privacy. NHSX has rejected […]
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Principles and priorities — Jeremy Keith — Adactio
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What makes a good principle? How do you avoid principles that are mere motherhood and apple pie? According to Jeremy Keith, it’s all about establishing priorities. He goes on to outline the danger of prioritising the experience of developers or designers above the user experience. He makes an interesting observation about a perceived difference in […]
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The research funnel — Emma Boulton
A neat way of understanding what sorts of user research to do when, and how that maps to the double diamond. This is elaborated on by Matthew Godfrey.
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How will humans, by nature social animals, fare when isolated? — The Economist
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I have worried about the social and mental health effects of the lockdown measures being implemented. But even I hadn’t anticipated quite how much conditions like post-traumatic stress disorder appear to be common following quarantines. According to a rapid review of the psychological effects of quarantines, published on March 14th in the Lancet, a British […]
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People with mental health conditions say the coronavirus has plunged UK treatment services into crisis — Alex Spence — BuzzFeed News
The effects of coronavirus and the lockdown on people with mental health conditions. I fear that when this pandemic is over, the actual death toll will number far higher than those whose deaths were directly caused by Covid-19. I foresee a mental health crisis with no resources left to deal with it.
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How to build a bad design system — Robin Rendle — CSS-Tricks
What’s worse than design by committee? Design system by committee.
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Adapting to the new normal
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One of the (many) strange features of the coronavirus outbreak is that in many ways I feel busier than I have ever been. It is almost three weeks since I was last in my office, yet I haven’t had the time to commit my thoughts to writing.
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Virtual birthday party — 9pm tonight
Virtual birthday party — 9pm tonight It’s my birthday today. But I couldn’t really be bothered to organise a physical get-together. Instead, I thought it would be fun to imagine there was some horrific virus that meant we couldn’t really leave the house much, and I had to celebrate it remotely. Update: This will now take […]
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I’m in Ikea, where lots of people are buying emergency desks
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I’m in Ikea, where lots of people are buying emergency desks.
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We spent this afternoon doing something nice. Katie Paterson exhibition at the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art
Totality We spent this afternoon doing something nice. Katie Paterson exhibition at the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art. The Cosmic Spectrum
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McKinsey: CEOs have no clue what chief design officers do — Mark Wilson — Fast Company
Talk about designers “having a seat at the table” generally leaves me cold. But this useful article explains why it can matter — but why designers have a duty to do more than simply be at the table. Evidence has long suggested that companies with a strong design focus are more successful. The example of […]
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Why the Gov.UK Design System team changed the input type for numbers — Hanna Laakso — Technology in government
The Gov.UK Design System team have discovered that using the HTML element <input type=”number”> creates some surprising problems in certain environments. Some of the limitations in assistive technologies such as Dragon Naturally Speaking are disappointing but unsurprising. But Chrome deciding to convert large numbers to exponential notation is rather more eyebrow-raising. Then there is Safari […]
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What happened with Lego — Andrew Sielen — Reality Prose
A fascinating myth-busting piece. Lego isn’t more expensive than it used to be. But this article contains some interesting theories as to why people perceive it to be more expensive than it used to be.
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Coding is for everyone — as long as you speak English — Gretchen McCulloch — Wired
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This year marks the 30th anniversary of the World Wide Web, so there’s been a lot of pixels spilled on “the initial promises of the web”—one of which was the idea that you could select “view source” on any page and easily teach yourself what went into making it display like that. This article makes […]
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How messaging has changed human interaction — Adrian Zumbrunnen — Modus
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A fascinating history of messaging from 1996’s ICQ to the present day. It details how a series of seemingly minor design decisions have had massive privacy implications and ultimately transformed how humans communicate.
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Join our team as a Content Designer — Website and Communications Blog
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Come and work with our team! We are looking for three experienced Content Designers to join the University of Edinburgh’s Website and Communications team as we embark on major projects to launch our new web publishing platform and services. If you’re passionate about using evidence-based approaches to create great content that meets users’ needs, we […]
