Linknote — — 165 words

Human-centred approaches — Politics

Could architecture and design do anything to alleviate walmartism?

How architecture is used to place poorer people in harsher environments.

Texture is a class thing. The more money you have, the more texture you get. The reverse is true of lighting and sound: the more money you have, the less of both of those you get.

These are not universal rules, but a return from a month spent in Europe to the United States, which is always much harsher in its economic realities than the countries over there, made it evident to me how prevalent the reality of texture discrimination is. Let’s call it walmartism: the transformation of the spaces used by those with the least means into boxes devoid of texture.

A more extreme example of a similar phenomenon is where a tower block such as Grenfell is re-clad to make it more pleasant for the rich people outside the building to look at, but more dangerous for the poor people living inside it.

Linknote — — 120 words

Human-centred approaches

You’re so intelligent

This is an 11 year old article that has just recently come to my attention, but it resonates today. It describes how graphic designers have protested about being seen as the ones that make it pretty; how they have sought to be given more respect, as if being tickled in the tummy.

I found myself at a design conference listening to still another demand that clients give us designers that coveted place at that legendary table where all the big decisions are made. Sitting next to me was one of my favorite clients, someone I treasure for her levelheadedness and good humor. “I’ve spent hours at that table,” she whispered to me. “It’s not that great, you know.”

Linknote — — 35 words

Digital — Human-centred approaches

How to write a problem statement

Sometimes, the difficult bit isn’t working out the solution — it’s working out the problem. This framework looks like a useful tool in the quest for the real problem.

Linknote — — 91 words

Digital — Human-centred approaches

The generous act of tunking

We found out that tunking (pronounced “toonking”) is a word this team uses for blunt critique, made with the intentions of the people on the receiving end uppermost in mind. It’s honest feedback.

The people doing the tunking don’t hold back. They say what they really think. They do this because they want the people being tunked to succeed.

I really like this. And it’s important to appreciate that giving honest feedback can be just as difficult as receiving it, if not more so.

Linknote — — 127 words

Social science

Deadly set: how too much focus causes mistakes

The phenomenon of set — where we focus so much on something specific that we miss the bigger picture. This article says it is a survival characteristic, but in the wrong circumstances it can have dire consequences. In the example provided, it was the cause of an air crash.

It’s vital for us to understand how and why we make mistakes – not just in safety critical systems but in all walks of life. When I read that passage above, I see parallels with so many of the mistakes I make on a daily basis at work and at home. I can see myself in every role: the captain, the flight engineer, the first officer, the air traffic controller.

Linknote — — 40 words

User experience — User research

How to get better answers from asking better questions

Chris How’s tips on doing better interviews. This is essentially a text version of his session at UX Scotland, which I wrote about on the University of Edinburgh Website Programme blog.

Linknote — — 85 words

Social science

Newly analysed recording challenges Zimbardo’s account of his infamous prison experiment

Many people are aware of the Stanford prison experiment, which “had to be abandoned when some of the volunteers playing the role of guards began mistreating the volunteers acting as prisoners.”

The validity of the study has long been a source of debate. But a new analysis suggests that the researchers had so much influence on the participants that the study was “not so much an experiment but more a form of theatre”.

Linknote — — 139 words

Web

Stylish browser extension steals all your internet history

If you use the Stylish browser extension, you ought to have a read of this. It might make you want to uninstall it immediately, as I did.

It appears that last year Stylish began collecting users’ data, including their full browser history, and even the contents of Google search results.

The above blog post explains exactly what is going on, and why it is a problem.

This is a great shame because Stylish provided a brilliant function enabling you to improve bad or unsuitable web designs very easily. I even created a style that improved the user interface for live timing on Formula1.com — which I still used up to last weekend, and has been installed by almost 500 others.

Not any more — I have uninstalled Stylish from my browser.

Linknote — — 135 words

Politics

Research: Women ask for raises as often as men, but are less likely to get them

The theory that women are paid less because they are less likely to ask for a pay rise appears to be nonsense.

The bottom line of our study is that women do “ask” just as often as men. They just don’t “get.”

Even we were surprised by the results. We had expected to find less asking by the females. Instead, we found that, holding background factors constant, women ask for a raise just as often as men, but men are more likely to be successful. Women who asked obtained a raise 15% of the time, while men obtained a pay increase 20% of the time. While that may sound like a modest difference, over a lifetime it really adds up.

Linknote — — 97 words

User experience

Work:

UX Scotland 2018 — my day-by-day notes

Some more follow-up to the UX Scotland conference, which I have published over on the University of Edinburgh Website Programme blog.

I set myself the challenge of writing a summary of each session I attended at UX Scotland, as a way of forming my own thoughts on each topic, and to make sure to follow up on everything I wanted to.

This resulting blog post is long. But I am sharing this on the basis that others might find it useful and seek to learn more about these topics, as I did.

Linknote — — 124 words

Business — Digital

The rise of business bullshit — and how we can fight it

> The modern organisation is obsessive about collaboration and consultation – but encouraging everyone’s opinions on everything invites bullshit.
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> Social media should have taught us by now that more opinions aren’t necessarily better…
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> The same applies to work. More consultation = more bullshit.

This is so true. Increasingly, I find myself feeling exasperated if I’m asked the provide an opinion on something I have no evidence about. We are often pressurised into giving opinions — “you’re supposed to be the expert”.

Baseless opinions fly around left, right and centre in any workplace. The last thing the world needs is another middle class dude like me with yet another opinion.

Let’s find the evidence instead.

Linknote — — 129 words

Content design — Human-centred approaches

Every breath you take, every move they make counts for WA paramedics

Fascinating examples of how an ambulance service has experimented with their communications to save lives. A great example of how to use small experiments and tests to monitor improvements.

Asking “tell me what’s happened” instead of “tell me what happened” saves a staggering nine seconds, on average, per emergency call.

Studies have shown the first phrase prompts an immediate focus on the relevant detail, while the second prompts panicked callers on the line to tell meandering stories, full of unnecessary detail.

Saying “We’re going to do CPR,” instead of asking “Do you want to do CPR?” means a sharp rise in the number of bystanders agreeing to perform first aid while waiting for an ambulance.