(3/3) - the most radical point of the standard is that, unlike every other governance standard, it gives a voice to the real end user. Policy makers on their own, technologists on their own… are really bad at guessing what users do. User Research is the radical democratisation of service creation.

🧵 gold

Do I know anyone (or anyone who knows anyone) who has had any joy in enforcement of the Public Sector Bodies (Websites and Mobile Applications) (No. 2) Accessibility Regulations 2018? The Equality Advisory Advice Service (EASS) who formally accept breach reports seem to be useless. Pls boost.

Today is a day when arts degrees are worthless, but the product of those degrees is so valuable it would kill an entire industry if they were made to pay for it.

feels like yet again time to mention that the *videogames* industry (that's a creative industry, which people do creative degrees in) brings in more than twice the amount to the British economy as the fishing and steel industries *combined*

Here I am in 2020 in the flimsiest, most pitful PPE - like so many other NHS staff, some of whom died from the Covid they caught in their hospitals. Tory peer Michelle Mone - who today lost her legal case & must repay the govt £122m - dares to claim she’s been ‘scapegoated’. What, Michelle? 🧵

If I was a Labour politician who wanted to design a better right to work scheme, I'd (a) start by cracking down on employers who transfer the risk to their workers, (b) work with the unions to design a scheme that puts workers' rights front and centre, and (c) phase roll-out, like digital switchover

I'd like to see UK data centre plan developed with net zero goals, community health and opportunity, and local renewal in mind. What is the upside of living and working near to a data centre? And if there isn't one, govt needs to *create* one.

Hospital wayfinding discussion and reminded of expert saying people need to remember they are architectural machines maintained by professionals for treating illness. They are structurally incomprehensible to visitors. It’s the physicalisation of jargon

Excited for @sdingov.bsky.social ! (Less happy for the horribly early start…) #sdingov

Pondering as a I listen to clinicians' hopes for how AI could transform their practice. What I hear is deep frustration with the terrible tools inflicted on them in previous waves of digitalisation, and a nostalgic yearning for the simplicity symbolised by a conversational interface

Waiting for youngest to get up, go into college and report back on A level results…

Every Silicon Valley innovation in the consumer space has been "what if this software was my mom" which explains why ChatGPT's primary use is as a therapist, relationship substitute for lonely boys, and "personal operating system" to organize their life

Brandolini's law in the workplace: the amount of energy needed to understand that a request is bullshit is an order of magnitude higher than to shoot off bullshit requests in the first place. AI saves a minute of time for the people sending out walls of text, at the cost of hours of deciphering it.

When we say "stop leaping to AI as the solution, start with user needs" what we mean is "start by understanding problems that real humans have, design so people can use technology easily, and put people first all the time - testing and iterating with real humans". AI doesn't have a heart. You do.

Thinking out loud on the NHS 10 year plan ... richardpope.org/notes/nhs10-...

So much this 🧵

I’m sure most people I know have already read this, but it’s glorious, so reposting just in case 🧵

Do I know any first-language Welsh speakers who'd be happy to be interviewed in-person (Bristol/SE Wales area) in mid-May for a Linguistic student's dissertation on the sound system of contemporary Welsh...? I can provide more detail if you DM me :-)

I’m on my third gov dept/ALB now. The job requires you to be a detective, archaeologist, agony aunt, motivational speaker and diplomat, all while trying to complete a Rubiks Cube while walking through a corridor full of rakes. Even if I thought AI was the solution, you can’t turbocharge its use.

🧵

So. Much. This.

I wonder what it would look like to assert some kind of ... feminist leadership alliance that lifts up best practice and proposes more inclusive alternatives. God knows we need it in the UK right now.

💯 agree with @benholliday.com on this. My experience of “tour of duty” types is a simplistic belief that fixing things is easy and that CS just “doesn’t get it”. A bad mix of saviour-complex, failure to wrestle with complexity, tech-Utopianism, and snobbery

I'm going to be 51 in a few weeks. I've worked in tech since 1996 and get patronised by younger, less experienced men all the time. I also get treated as an ingénue by men I worked with more than 20 years ago who will never see me as a peer. Being a woman in tech is *all the treats*. Never stops.

I know my Bluesky profile is exceedingly suspect (no avatar, low post count, handful of followers), but I’m definitely a legit human, and happy to buy a couple of Camp Digital tickets for folks in early stages of career. The Nexer bods are matching me too, so do pass it on. Thanks.

AI has already been used to run scams, rip off artists, destroy search engines, and drown publishers under an avalanche of shit. Now AI boosters found a new use case: replacing research with a robot that pretends to be a user, so devs can just code the thing it asks for. This is colossally stupid.

There's been lots of comment on Post Office Horizon so far - but Mike (and some of us from @publicdigital.bsky.social ) have published some thoughts on avoiding a sequel: public.digital/2024/01/12/a...

"How would you explain programming to your grandma? How would a product manager describe what they do to their mom?" My grandma programmed mainframes before you were born. My mom has been a PM since before you started school. Maybe they should explain these jobs to you instead.

I'm increasingly convinced HMG should pay a much more active, muscular role in shaping the market for software used by federated public services like GPs, hospitals and planning. Like actively requiring interoperability in practice, not just in theory, for example.