An ethics of mutual care Foregrounding maintenance and repair as an aspect of technological work invites not only new functional but also moral relations to the world of technology. It references what is in fact a very old but routinely forgotten relationship of humans to things in the world: namely, an ethics of mutual care and responsibility. Steven J. Jackson, Rethinking Repair ethicshumanitymoralitytechnology
I choose a world with pyramids Which would you choose: a world with pyramids? Or without? Humanity has always dreamt of flight, but the dream is cursed. My aircraft are destined to become tools for slaughter and destruction. But still, I choose a world with pyramids in it. Which world will you choose? Hayao Miyazaki, The Wind Rises Beauty in flight flighthumanityinnovationmorality
The quality of the day It is something to be able to paint a particular picture, or to carve a statue, and so to make a few objects beautiful; but it is far more glorious to carve and paint the very atmosphere and medium through which we look, which morally we can do. To affect the quality of the day, that is the highest of arts. Henry David Thoreau, Walden Suburban Nation uxartmoralitybeauty
Nature undisturbed My chief aim is simply to describe and explain the technological fabric of society, not to judge whether it is good or bad, beautiful or ugly. And yet I would not argue that technology is neutral or value-free. Quite the contrary: I suggest that the signs of human presence are the only elements of the landscape that have and moral or aesthetic significance at all. In nature undisturbed, a desert is not better or worse than a forest or a swamp; there is simply no scale on which to rank such things unless it is a human scale of utility or beauty. Only when people intervene in nature is there any question of right or wrong, better or worse. Brian Hayes, Infrastructure: A Guide to the Industrial Landscape naturemoralityaestheticshumanity
We infantilize ourselves Here in the US, we expect government and law to be our conscience. Our superego, you could say. It has something to do with liberal individualism, and something to do with capitalism, but I don't understand much of the theoretical aspect—what I see is what I live in. Americans are in a way crazy. We infantilize ourselves. We don't think of ourselves as citizens—parts of something larger to which we have profound responsibilities. We think of ourselves as citizens when it comes to our rights and privileges, but not our responsibilities. We abdicate our civic responsibilities to the government and expect the government, in effect, to legislate morality. David Foster Wallace, The Pale King societygovernmentpoliticsmoralitycivics
List of games that Buddha would not play A List en.wikipedia.org … Guessing at letters traced with the finger in the air or on a friend's back. (letters in the Brahmi script) Guessing a friend's thoughts. … gameszenmorality
The amorality of Web 2.0 An Essay by Nicholas Carr www.roughtype.com The Internet is changing the economics of creative work – or, to put it more broadly, the economics of culture – and it’s doing it in a way that may well restrict rather than expand our choices. Wikipedia might be a pale shadow of the Britannica, but because it’s created by amateurs rather than professionals, it’s free. And free trumps quality all the time. wwwmoralityeconomicsgoodness
A Mindful Mobile OS An Article by Clo S. thistooshallgrow.com I read and loved Potential's "iOS 15, Humane" proposition. Published earlier in June by co-founders Welf and Oliver, it tackles how iOS could help us better protect our attention. As a designer who cares about and writes about digital wellness, I'm profoundly aligned with their suggestions. Persuasive design Disclosure requirement From infinite feeds to pages Was this time well spent? Regret tax Conditions of use moralityethicsuxsoftwaredesign
A Plea for Lean Software An Essay by Niklaus Wirth cr.yp.to Software's girth has surpassed its functionality, largely because hardware advances make this possible. The way to streamline software lies in disciplined methodologies and a return to the essentials. Measured by the number of its featuresEssential vs. nice to haveDependence is more profitable than educationThe most rewarding iterationsNever enough time A grossly obese set of requirementsFeatures and complexity softwareperformancefunction
Measured by the number of its features A primary cause of complexity is that software vendors uncritically adopt almost any feature that users want. Any incompatibility with the original system concept is either ignored or passes unrecognized, which renders the design more complicated and its use more cumbersome. When a system's power is measured by the number of its features, quantity becomes more important than quality. Every new release must offer additional features, even if some don't add functionality. featuresqualitycomplexity
Essential vs. nice to have Customers have trouble distinguishing between essential features and those that are just "nice to have." Examples of the latter class: those arbitrarily overlapping windows suggested by the uncritically but widely adopted desktop metaphor; and fancy icons decorating the screen display, such as antique mailboxes and garbage cans that are further enhanced by the visible movement of selected items toward their ultimate destination. These details are cute but not essential, and they have a hidden cost. / Increased complexity results in large part from our recent penchant for friendly user interaction. I've already mentioned windows and icons; color, gray-scales, shadows, pop-ups, pictures, and all kinds of gadgets can easily be added. Menus, Metaphors and Materials: Milestones of User Interface Designlittlebigdetails interfacesux
Dependence is more profitable than education A customer who pays—in advance—for service contracts is a more stable income source than a customer who has fully mastered a product's use. Customer dependence is more profitable than customer education. What I find truly baffling are manuals—hundreds of pages long—that accompany software applications, programming languages, and operating systems. Unmistakably, they signal both a contorted design that lacks clear concepts and an intent to hook customers. The design concept documentation
The most rewarding iterations Initial designs for sophisticated software applications are invariably complicated, even when developed by competent engineers. Truly good solutions emerge after iterative improvements or after redesigns that exploit new insights, and the most rewarding iterations are those that result in program simplifications. Evolutions of this kind, however, are extremely rare in current software practice—they require time-consuming thought processes that are rarely rewarded. Instead, software inadequacies are typically corrected by quickly conceived additions that invariably result in the well-known bulk. So that you can get feedback on it and make it betterTo anticipate all the uses and abuses agileiteration
Never enough time Time pressure is probably the foremost reason behind the emergence of bulky software. The time pressure that designers endure discourages careful planning. It also discourages improving acceptable solutions; instead, it encourages quickly conceived software additions and corrections. Time pressure gradually corrupts an engineer's standard of quality and perfection. It has a detrimental effect on people as well as products. Deadlines are bullshitThe Thing-deadline calculus