Linknote — — 117 words

Personal — Web

A few notes on daily blogging

A striking article, partly because I find it slightly eerie that the author chose to start blogging daily on 1 October, the same day I started blogging again.

I haven’t quite managed to blog on a daily basis. Although I do publish something at least once a day, I tend to write multiple posts at a time and schedule them for future publication.

(As an example, I’m writing this on Wednesday 28 February, in the expectation that I will publish it on Tuesday 6 March.)

As a result, I’m not sure I have benefited yet from resuming my regular blogging. Perhaps I will endeavour to carve out some time each day to write something.

Linknote — — 79 words

Human-centred approaches — Technology — Web

If Google wanted to get found in Google

If you ever have to say you’re simple, you’re not. Because if you were truly simple then you wouldn’t have to waste time telling people you are. You’d just be simple. Only those with complexity syndrome feel the need to explain that they are simple. The more you have to write about how to use your product or service, the more you have failed as a designer.

Linknote — — 112 words

Media — Politics — Technology

Inside Facebook’s hellish two years — and Mark Zuckerberg’s struggle to fix it all

A very lengthy, but entertaining and informative, read about how everything went wrong for Facebook in the past two years, and why it is a mess of their own making.

While Facebook grappled internally with what it was becoming—a company that dominated media but didn’t want to be a media company—Donald Trump’s presidential campaign staff faced no such confusion. To them Facebook’s use was obvious. Twitter was a tool for communicating directly with supporters and yelling at the media. Facebook was the way to run the most effective direct-­marketing political operation in history.

Linknote — — 67 words

Human-centred approaches — Technology — User experience

Make me think!

A provocative piece on “the problem with “user centered” design”.

Whenever we are about to substitute a laborious activity such as learning a language, cooking a meal, or tending to plants with a — deceptively — simple solution, we might always ask ourselves: Should the technology grow — or the person using it?

A good companion to the idea that “computers are setting us up for disaster”.

Linknote — — 67 words

Culture — Economics — Technology

The dark art of stealing from self-checkouts

Anyone who pays for more than half of their stuff in self checkout is a total moron.

I have long wondered how much stealing goes on at self-checkouts. It turns out, quite a lot — but presumably not enough to make many retailers think twice about having them. What’s interesting is that many self-checkout thieves are apparently otherwise generally law-abiding.

Linknote — — 136 words

Digital — Media — Technology

It’s the (democracy-poisoning) golden age of free speech

You may think you’ve read it all from people complaining that the likes of Facebook are threatening free speech. But this is a genuinely smart, thought-provoking article on the wide-ranging ways society need to rethink its approach towards freedom of speech.

We are particularly susceptible to glimmers of novelty, messages of affirmation and belonging, and messages of outrage toward perceived enemies. These kinds of messages are to human community what salt, sugar, and fat are to the human appetite. And Facebook gorges us on them.

I have thought before that we need to start thinking about ‘eating your digital greens’. Which means being wary of processed content (processed through an algorithm, that is), and ensuring you seek out a balanced diet of content from different sources and perspectives.

Linknote — — 71 words

Digital

I’m having a ‘digital transformation’ right now

This is slightly inflammatory, but contains a lot of truth.

I was particularly struck by this point:

You will also find lots of high-level pieces about why ‘Digital Transformation’ matters — but very little in the way of relevant, reference-able case studies and practical advice about how to do it.

Although I would give mention to the case studies outlined in the New Reality.