Duncan Stephen

Article — 15 May 2017 — 486 words

Last week we came home to find a crow flying around our living room

Personal

We’d both had a few jars, but we weren’t imagining this. There was definitely a bird bounding around the bay window.

Article — 22 April 2017 — 767 words

Pastures new

Digital — Personal

Work: SRUC — Scotland’s Rural College, The University of Edinburgh

After almost two years at SRUC (Scotland’s Rural College), I have decided to move on. The opportunity to work with the University of Edinburgh Website Programme was too good to ignore.

Article — 2 March 2017 — 1,339 words

The bumpy road to autonomy

Economics — Technology

Autonomous vehicles — driverless cars — are coming. There will be bumps in the road along the way. But they are essential to fix our cities.

Article — 22 February 2017 — 633 words

How to improve your job stories

Digital — Media — User experience

This month’s digital design digest features a couple of articles about getting the most out of job stories. Plus, promising news from the world of CSS, how the Guardian is increasing its subscriber numbers, and where government goes wrong with digital transformation.

Article — 25 January 2017 — 650 words

Why people are losing trust in the media — and advertisers

Digital — Media — User experience

Why people are losing trust in the media and advertisers, why ugly websites succeed, and why it’s time to ditch PDFs.

Article — 18 January 2017 — 601 words

UX book review — A Project Guide to UX Design

User experience

I probably wasn’t the target audience for this book introducing UX design concepts. But there are some good reasons for me to keep this on my bookshelf.

Article — 20 December 2016 — 627 words

Implementing HTTPS

Digital — Web

I put off making my website more secure because I dreaded it would be difficult. In the end it was a ten minute job.

Article — 18 November 2016 — 1,310 words

Ten years of twitting about

Digital — Media

In ten years, Twitter has transformed from a geek enclave to a mainstream form of communication. But I find it difficult to imagine signing up to Twitter today.

Article — 7 November 2016 — 1,092 words

The perils of the ‘launch and leave’ approach to project management

Architecture — Digital — User experience

Our perspective on how a digital product should be managed is strongly influenced by our background and our role. That certainly helps explain some of the difficult conversations I have had over the years.

Article — 19 October 2016 — 795 words

North Coast 500 – days 9 and 10 – Dunnet Head, Castle of Mey, Duncansby Stacks and the journey home

Travel

The odd thing about John O’Groats is that you would imagine it being like the edge of the world the way people talk about it. But once you get there, it doesn’t feel like the edge of anything.

Article — 16 October 2016 — 803 words