Technology

Article — 1 November 2025 — 797 words

How did we let the web get this bad?

Recently I had to intensively research a couple of topics involving potential purchase decisions. My experience was utterly miserable.

Article — 2 October 2025 — 555 words

The forgotten purpose of agile — Empowered teams responding to change

Business — Technology

The ideas behind agile tend to be squashed down to two words: “move fast”. But the Agile Manifesto says nothing about moving fast.

Article — 26 September 2025 — 1,247 words

Autonomy, independence, federation, WordPress and concrete

Personal — Web

I have had to make some behind-the-scenes changes to this website. In the process, I am planning to make it more interoperable with the fediverse and indieweb standards — and I am sticking with WordPress.

Article — 11 August 2025 — 1,745 words

Life beyond the folder system

Digital — Information architecture — Technology — Web

The folder metaphor is so intuitive to generations of computer users that they can struggle to think of any other way of using a computer. Yet for younger generations, the idea is completely alien.

Article — 2 May 2025 — 1,271 words

Keeping it real in the age of artificial intelligence

Society — Technology

Amid technology-focused hype cycles, the job of human-centred practitioners is to remind everyone: the main reason people use technology is to enhance our connections with other humans in the real world.

Article — 9 April 2025 — 2,620 words

The pain in a name — Is information architecture right to call itself architecture?

Architecture — Information architecture — Technology — User experience

I have long felt uneasy about modern occupations associating themselves with high-status traditional professions. This has been brought into sharp focus for me since I started a role last year focusing heavily on information architecture, to the annoyance of my wife Alex, who is an actual architect.

Article — 25 February 2025 — 1,679 words

Object-oriented approaches in action

Information architecture — User experience — Web — Work

There are several benefits of building a content model in an object-oriented way. This post walks through those benefits, and demonstrates a real-life example of how this approach works on a well-known website.

Article — 4 February 2025 — 1,406 words

There’s no such thing as a technology problem

Business — Social science — Society — Technology — Web

Information has become the forgotten half in “information technology”. Tech companies are struggling because they aren’t focusing on the human problems they need to solve.

Article — 30 September 2024 — 583 words

Another fresh start

Personal — Web

I have decided to refresh my approach to blogging (yet again). There are a couple of main drivers for this.

Article — 1 July 2024 — 1,082 words

Reflecting on two years as a user experience consultant; looking ahead to working on structured content

Digital — Information architecture — User experience — Work

The latest chapter in my career has closed, as I have found an incredibly exciting new opportunity. But the past couple of years have given me a lot to reflect on.

Article — 2 January 2024 — 1,225 words

Busi-ness and blogging in 2024

Personal — Technology — Web

A busier life, and recent events on the internet, mean a new direction for my blog.

Article — 30 December 2022 — 1,261 words

20 years of blogging

Personal — Technology — Web

Today marks the 20th anniversary of my first blog post. Blogging is important to me, but it has seen many changes. The online publishing ecosystem is having a moment right now. So what’s next?