Article — — 2,559 words

Business — User experience — User research

A basic diagram of a desert, with multiple sand dunes visible in the distance. The furthest-away sand dune has a blue flag on top

I have long been an advocate of agile ways of working. One of the things that originally drew me to user experience was the opportunity to have evidence-based ways of understanding the changes you need to make. So I was surprised whenever I encountered people who believed that user experience methods ran counter to the principles of agile.

Linknote — — 109 words

Technology

This ancient laptop is the only key to the most valuable supercars on the planet

McLaren used the most advanced (and expensive) parts and materials to build the F1s, like kevlar and gold. But despite all those motorsport-grade cables, early ’90s technology means they were also equipped with early ’90s microchips.

One irony of using cutting-edge technology is that it can in fact date the most quickly. The legendary McLaren F1 requires an early 1990s Compaq laptop with a bespoke conditional access card in order to be serviced. Despite being old technology, the laptop is so valuable for this purpose that it is worth thousands of pounds itself.

Linknote — — 140 words

Human-centred approaches

There are better ways to get around town

A New York Times piece on how New York could take inspiration for European cities to make its streets safer. But these aren’t just lessons for New York. There are lessons for everyone.

Some old-school traffic engineers in America will tell you that many of the Dutch ideas are unsafe. What they mean is that they make streets unsafe for fast driving. In 2016, the Netherlands had 33 traffic deaths for every million people. America had 118 traffic deaths per million.

As cities become ever-more crowded, and with an autonomous revolution about to kick off, now is the time to radically rethink how our streets are designed. The days of cars taking priority have to end, and to encourage active travel — cycling and walking. It will make us all feel better and be safer.

Linknote — — 80 words

Digital — Politics

How can we incentivise the digital world to make safer services?

How regulation came to be in railways, engineering and cars — and what this tells us about how digital services may be regulated.

Trigger points for regulation have varied depending on the field, the period of history and the country. However, the thing all these triggers have in common is a change in attitudes. People need to demand change to incentivize companies to make their products and services safer.