Tech Nottingham Sept 2018: Questioning Your Assumptions
The Dangers Of Digital Exclusion by Helen Joy
We made it to the future! As we push further into the 21st century AI, big data, VR and AR are all now a reality. With developers and designers experimenting with this brave new world of connected tech, voice UI, facial recognition and more, we’re living in exciting times. But what about those who lack our digital privilege?
Digital exclusion is a reality for many people in the UK and across the world. But as less visible presences do they make it into our personas and user stories? Or are they left on the sidelines? Is the quest and drive for innovation alienating the very people we should be designing and building for? It’s our responsibility to look out for all our users, not just those who can keep up with us.
Innovation and inclusion are not, and shouldn’t be mutually exclusive. But the caveat of that is that inclusion must be considered from the beginning. So many times we see solution-led design, where ideas are developed without thorough user research that then fail to meet real-world problems. As makers in tech, we have the power to massively hinder or improve lives; not those of ‘users’ but of people. This talk looks at what it means to be digitally excluded and how we can design and build products and services that are not just appealing to us, but life-changing to those who use them.
A link to the slides for Helen’s presentation:
QUESTION | (The Numbers) by Lance Carr
When was the last time you thought ‘outside the box’? Should you be drinking coffee every day? Do compilers really work? And what does any of this have to do with numbers?!
Join me on an exploration of how we think and how people use that to influence us. From coins to planes, shampoo to solicitors; we will discover why numbers have never been more important and why you should question the world around you. Everything you think you know about numbers is about to change.
Lance introduced his talk by telling us that statistics still has a bad reputation and it’s all the fault of calculus!
We start off thinking laterally and need to be taught to think logically.
We should be asking questions about information presented to us and thinking about why the information is presented in a certain way.
An example was given that no software can be 100% error free as software languages (or software systems) become more complicated.