People who know me, have read more than five words I have written, seen me present, etc know that I am all about global and universal design, but here and there I get called out for a moment as some out of touch midwesterner so sure, why not list out my credentials?

First, mindset. You don’t actually have to have experienced stuff to be an advocate and ally. I can go on about this, but strongly believe it. Read a book, talk to some people, give a crap about things. Believe that progress is possible and work towards it.

But for those that think only experience counts…

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Notes from what I presented on 26 May 2022 at the UXPA-NJ monthly meetup.

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Almost all widgets are fine when used properly. Dark patterns aren’t really evil widgets, but evil use of them; the big patterns book has a paragraph or two on anti-patterns at the end of each one, so you know how to avoid pitfalls and peril. Lots of people say to never use very common things like say the Hamburger Menu. But it’s fine, if used properly. Bad implementations don’t make an item bad itself.

But there are indeed a handful of truly Bad Things. Evil widgets that should be gathered up and buried in a circle of stones at midnight under a full moon. Yet, they persist:

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I, and my company, cannot support in thought word or deed any organization that's assumes the primacy of one group over another in any manner. I am especially disappointed and disconcerted that your statements were delivered in the guise of UXmatters. This associates all contributors such as myself with these positions.

I will not be submitting further articles for consideration of publication by UXmatters, and request withdrawal from the Advisory Board with immediate effect.

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Everyone who likes my detailed heuristic gripes, I got a thing for you. For non-life-threatening reasons, I am wearing this for four days, and within 5 seconds I could tell that I was going to have a lot to say.

As usual, this is not to “be mean” or just to gripe for the sake of it. It is all a case study in how we can do better than this. Don’t fall into these traps with your products, whether hardware, software, or service, regardless of market.

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Marketplace Tech did a series of stories recently on internet availability, with lots of good stats and stories. Most interesting to me was how the pandemic has really exposed the gigantic, structural flaws in our total-lack-of-a-system of providing broadband access to the US population.

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A brief tale of how chasing metrics is not actually solving customer problems, courtesy Rad Power Bikes.

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Amazon is evil, so we must boycott them, shop local instead. But has anyone though this through really? Local stores suck also…

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A revoltionary machine for Arctic exploration, built by people who have never been there, tested on the sand dunes of Indiana. What could possibly go wrong?

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Data is not what it seems and certainly not what computers tell us it is. “Not great not terrible” is actually about an off-scale-high situation everyone ignores to misunderstand the severity of the data, and today we’re experiencing the same thing as we make personal and policy decisions around infection rates with incomplete data.

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I don’t really get why, but thermostats on portable heaters, and most air conditioners, are awful. It seems like simple technology, but they are simply useless. To keep the greenhouse at a remotely reasonable temperature, we have to go out there three times a day, and change the settings.

But, the other week I got annoyed, googled, and found this…

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People anthropomorphize most sufficiently complex systems, so they assume that difficult things act as they would for humans. Thus, they expect to see visible effort such as spending additional time to perform a hard task.

On the labor illusion, the use of artificial delays, and me being interviewed on video about some of this.

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Design your systems better, to avoid capturing stupid data. And monitor what your system says to do lest to send happy greetings to people who are not happy or new, send acceptance letters to every applicant of your hard-to-get-into school, confuse one patient with another, or a thousand other stupid, rude, and downright dangerous mistakes that could be corrected easily if anyone cared, or was empowered to use their own judgement.

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On how technology is all tricks to match human perception. If you don’t understand the technology, and make incorrect or out-of-date assumptions, it won’t go well.

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This is an easily readable version of the deck I often present. It makes it easier to follow along for those whose first language is not English, and is otherwise an easy way to view the information without resorting to a slide show or waiting for video.

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I regularly encounter people, or posts, that refer to all criticism as bad. That it stifles creativity, especially for us sensitive artsy designer types. I could hardly disagree more. Criticism is a key part of discovering new ideas and working collaboratively. I am not brilliant enough to get by without help from others.

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How the tech press and retailers have decided the iPad is The Only Tablet. Walk into the local electronic repair/resell place, try to buy a used Android. None. They all but laugh at you. They may actually giggle a bit.

Um… they are wrong. Bias breaks stuff. Broken down by OS (instead of the manufacturer every dumbass analyst insists on!), 70% of tablet sales are Android…

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What is bugging me most about this is how much everyone accepts it. Perfectly smart folks who think we need to design ethically are saying that it’s jerky, but (paraphrased several) “of course a company can’t support updates forever.”

To which I say: why not?

Why have we all internalized that disposable, very expensive, things are the norm?

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So, the provider of this very blog I am writing on, Squarespace, hates mobile. Not just that they are responsive, no ability to be adaptive. And are pretty bad at any code efficiency; the 50+

No, I mean, you go to edit your blog on the phone because you are on the go and forgot something and…

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How auditing sand for Y2K compliance should not have been a joke. A look at Y2K+20, including why things are failing again, and how there was no crisis because we all did our jobs.

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