Read

The death to innovation. Russell Davies, 2013

I remembered this a little while back when thinking about bad old user experiences and journeys that are still mostly unresolved and still sucky. It’s what led to my ux is a joke post. Russell’s observations came back to memory this week when adding this little pamphlet/manual to my Printed Matters project, and thinking how helpful, considered and generally nice old manuals used to be. The sort of thing you’d be happy to keep, rather than confused to ever own.

The data on extreme human ageing is rotten from the inside out

As someone that thought Blue Zones were a good thing to be learning from, this work is a bit of a downer. At the same time, a fantastic lesson and example of not trusting data without context (aka more data). We’re just bad at this though, and love a story or nice and tidy looking idea that’s presented to us.

What we can and can’t say about what we do and don’t know. Tim Harford

Tim Harford’s writings are always so wonderfully packed with nuggets of interest. Even though they’re short, each one takes me ages to read due to all the digressions and rabbit holes I’m sent into. In this one, the semantic mess we’re in between the words ‘likely’ and “‘common’, the utter uselessness of phrases like ‘a fair chance’ when we’re making any sort of important decision, and this five step technique to try and mitigate the false reassurances that we get from useless words and phrases when dealing with probabilities: “Tell people what you know, what you don’t know, what you’re doing to find out, and what they can do in the meantime. Finally, remind them that the advice may change.” Very much along the lines of the ‘Tell them what you’re going to tell them’ presentation technique. Also, this link feels quite well companioned with the one above.

Think Fast And Slow – How To Thrive In Digital Transformation

I’ve been drafting a post in my head for a while, about how the the ‘digital transformation’ sector seems to have slipped unhealthily into ‘System 1’ thinking habits. About the feeling that UCD is more a practice of ritual, theatre, and shallow mimicry now, than inquisitive and considered action; System 2 thinking. I was sure I wasn’t the only one thinking this, so has a little search and found this post touching on a lot of my thoughts, and adding a few more. There’s more to my train of thought though, so I think that will keep brewing for another time.

Patient records and the NHS App. Public Digital

“…fundamentals that also need addressing… Radically reshaping vendor markets. NHSE has too often let the market decide. Enough of that.” Love this. This post is a brilliantly concise explainer of the digital and data challenges of the NHS, and a pretty good collection of suggestions about what needs to be done to help. Impressive for such a short piece.

The psychological phenomenon wherein a subject makes motions unconsciously

The ideomotor phenomenon. A new term to me. I’d like to see a bit more before fully accepting it though as it feels a tad phrenology-ish. But I do like that it claims to explain the “effects of automatic writing, dowsing, facilitated communication, applied kinesiology, and ouija boards”. It reminds me of reports about people with split-brain conditions, where “each hemisphere will have its own separate perception, concepts, and impulses to act.” I wonder if ideomotor phenomenon can be used to explain the autopilot activity of experience drivers? Effectively not thinking consciously much at all while operating a machine and making tiny micro-adjustments to the steering wheel.

Independent design consultant Nina Wafula

A brilliantly written and well pitch personal site. A perfect content design case study. Love also the idea of ‘quiet candour’. Such a unique and appealing quality for a designer to have.

Situational awareness. The Decade Ahead, for AI, AGI and ASI. According to Leopold Aschenbrenner

I’m half way through these essays (via the iPhone ‘listen to page’ functionality that I love, but also want desperately to redesign). A fascinating collection of theories and facts that’s a rollercoaster to read. It goes through feeling like an educational history, exposé reporting, tech documentation, an investor pitch deck, intriguing hard science fiction, paranoia, conspiracy theory, infrastructure modelling, and an international Philosophy, Politics and Economics course.

It has me thinking a lot about the bind between international relations and security, and international energy needs and the climate crisis. Also, imagining a future state of ‘safety’ in form or Mutually Assured Destruction via ownership of Artificial Super Intelligence. A rather dark form of wishful thinking, but imagining that ASI will actually stop us from hurting ourselves is the happy place I need right now. A way toward the post-scarcity utopia Earth of the Star Trek universe. See Trekonomics for more on that.

Here’s what you can and (probably) can’t change about [AI’s] environmental impact

I’ve not actually finished this one yet, but wanted to add it with the link above (particularly in the Racing to the trillion dollar cluster essay.

Listen

Multitasking Doesn’t Work. So Why Do We Keep Trying? Freakonomics

“For the average person, who thinks that they are quite adept at multitasking, are they deluded? Yes, they are. And there’s three reasons. First of all, people may feel that they’re accomplishing more when they multitask. But people make more errors when they’re switching their attention rapidly. Another thing is that there’s what’s called a switch cost when we think we’re multitasking. A switch cost is the extra time it takes to reorient to this new task. The biggest cost that we found relates to the third reason why multitasking is bad, and that is because it causes stress. It’s not just correlation of shifting attention and stress, but it actually causes stress.” This whole episode is gold. And I don’t just say that as someone that loathes Slack (although I did particularly like how much time was spent listing the ways that Slack is destructive).

The Subscription Trap. Planet Money

A nice look back at the history of online subscription and how they and SaaS became a bane of modern life. I’m fascinated by the UX of this area and how we’re still struggling to figure out how we live with it. The model isn’t going away, but it’s already overwhelming, and making it harder for small creators to make a living. Patreon feels like the closest to helping with the latter, but I wonder if a more centralised pool of money might be needed to support collections of people with one subscription, rather than all these tiny micro subscriptions that we lose track of, and struggle to balance the fairness and value of in our own minds. Lots here for UCD people to think about. Also, a great episode to pair with positive news from the US (for once) about click-to-cancel laws.

Should we be worried about OpenAI? Search Engine

An enlightening listen (and where I learned about Situational Awareness, above). And maybe a case of breaking Betteridge’s law of headlines, though for more reason than one.

Listen/Watch

David Hogg – Leaders We Deserve & The Next Generation of Political Changemakers

Absolutely inspiring to see David Hogg, a survivor of the 2018 Parkland mass shooting, speak with such clarity, passion, and optimism about the challenge of effecting long-term positive change. It’s not going to be quick, or easy, and the bad guys have an enormous head start. But it can be done and it’s slowly happening. So exciting to hear young people coming through with this level of drive and focus.

The real reason we drove on the moon

An interesting history lesson, but also a little theory at the end about the behaviour of billionaire sci-fi nerds and how far they’ll go to follow their dreams. “I mean, Wernher von Braun joined the Nazis to develop German rockets… he joined the SS to develop German rockets!”. History rhymes.

Your brain is biased by default. Here’s how to reset it. David Eagleman

“Why do we accept our reality as the uncontested truth? You are a data collection machine that moves through the world and you vacuum up your little bits of experience that you have. And in the end, whatever you have, that’s what you assume to be true. But, our experiences are limited. We’re born on a particular spot on the planet, and we have a thin little trajectory of experience and we construct what we believe the world is made up of from there. And as a result, we all have a very limited view of what’s going on out there. The interesting thing about being human is that we are stuck inside our internal model. That’s all we ever see. But with the endeavour of Science, and Litterateur, and Philosophy, what we’re able to do is step outside of ourselves and understand that “Hey! The way that I see the world isn’t the only way to see the world, it’s not the only truth. And the more we can get good at that, the more we can try to build a better society”. Agreed. Love this fairly succinct way of framing what I’m thinking (specifically within the world of design and creative education right now).

Watch

I poured all the galaxies in the universe into a pool. Epic Spaceman

One for the kids. But totally for adults also. This kind of science communication is so essential in helping us understand what is now known about space. Properly mind bending. Really inspiring video creation also. Check out this video about the upcoming Europa mission for more details on that.

The Best Handles Ever! Kyrie 1v1

I’ve started playing basketball again and I’m loving it. Really enjoying the reengagement with full court strategy (every team sport is a variation of chess imo), and so pleased there are so many resources online these days to help me improve my skills. After a lot of searching for shooting and handling technique, my YouTube suggestions have become a bit saturated with so so videos, but from time to time a gem like this comes up. Utterly amazing to see how good Kyrie Irving is. Not sure how much I can practically take from this, but inspiration is at least half the battle to getting better.

The NBA Star Who Couldn’t Shoot But Still Outscored Everyone

Another of my YouTube recommendations after so many basketball searches. I was never a Shaq fan, so not sure why I clicked this, and the narrators voice is pretty challenging, but I nibbled away at this video and ended up enjoying what for me was a bit of revisionist history. Also, nice to think that maybe I at least better than one NBA superstar at shooting. Just. Maybe.

Metaphors .002 seconds after using “like” or “as”

Made me smirk.

This new traffic light is shockingly dangerous – but still saves lives

A nice additional resource / inspiration for my ongoing signage research / train of thought. Bonkers also to learn more about the approach and attitude toward road safety in America. AND, the existence of pegasus crossings in the UK!

Look

To the creative kids. Rob Bartlett

A page I’ve not found on Rob’s site before, despite having spent a fair amount of time on there. Such a detailed, thoughtful and considerate designer.

Artist, Bjørn Rune Lie

Rediscovering the work of Bjørn. I bought this piece in 2011. There’s something about his work that really resonates with me.

Learn

HTML is for people

“…It doesn’t require any previous experience making websites or coding. I will cover everything you need to know to get started in an approachable and friendly way.” An incredibly thoughtful and accessible resource. What an amazing thing for someone to create for free.

Want

The Art of Uncertainty: How to Navigate Chance, Ignorance, Risk and Luck. David Spiegelhalter

I’m really far behind on my existing book stack (months of reading at my pace) but I so want to add this one to it. David Spiegelhalter is such a great communicator, I bet there’s a lot in here to learn from beyond the maths and facts.