I ran my 100th training course recently 💐 17 courses, 2000+ people. It's been a privilege to meet and learn with so many wonderful people. Instead of the clichéd "top 5 things I've learnt" post, I was wondering if anyone had any questions for me? Serious and silly questions are equally welcome!

Excellent non-bs views from @heatherburnstech.bsky.social on the deeply problematic UK proposals to ban under 16s from social media www.thenational.scot/news/2613974...

UK Palantir CEO throwing his toys out of the box in a very unbecoming way here. There is no compulsion for any public body to be a Palantir customer, and the fact that he presumes there is seems very telling www.theguardian.com/technology/2...

Lisa Nandy, 2024: The era of culture wars is over! Labour, 2026: If you think someone looks a bit weird, you can now stop them going for a piss.

This truly is appalling. A massive racist would say they feel 'distressed' at black people being in the same space as them, and obviously what you do there is throw the massive racist out and ban them. This is pandering to bastards like they did to racists in the American South. Absolutely fuck this

The Equality and Human Rights Commission has now published its amended Code of Practice relating to the Equality Act. Read our full statement: www.watershed.co.uk/news/stateme...

I’ve been working at Defra for nearly 2 years and I still get unnecessarily pleased when I see a diagram which includes labels like “chickens dataset”.

Service mapping is an important and useful tool in service design and a core skill for service designers. @ignacia orellana are running a training course on Service mapping in September. www.tickettailor.com/events/ignac...

I have a heavy metal postman which is great. Opened the door to receive a package today and he said HAVE YOU HEARD THE NEW ANTHRAX SONG (I have, and it rules).

Excellent read. Most accessibility issues occur because product teams assume everyone uses the web the way they do.

Yay! I'm hiring two Senior Accessibility Specialists to join my team on GOV.UK One Login. You'll be working with great people, solving complex problems for tens of millions of users. Salary of £70,834 - £74,317 (London) / £63,240 - £66,610 (National). Please share!

A group of us ran Sara's course like a book club where we watched a section each week and regrouped to discuss. Highly recommend, I often refer back when working on components.

Brilliant work by @cocochan.bsky.social and colleagues. Build, don’t buy! Palantir is not magic :)

Every Civil Service hiring panel: "Give me an example of how you can deliver at pace." Also every Civil Service hiring panel: "Our recruitment process takes nine months."

Edge Users are made by where you choose to stand

Excellent write up by @tumshie.me “…the beauty of what Camp Digital does is de-emphasise the digital, to the extent that it's occasionally so subtle you have to prod around for it. Technology plays second fiddle to human experience…” A downside to doing a talk is you miss a lot.

Have had a lot of fun recently, selling off old treasures from my childhood - mostly computers and games my kids will never use. Made more money on each than I expected. Now it’s all sold I feel a bit empty with nothing else to flog. This must be how Thatcher felt after privatising everything.

I highly recommend her new book ‘Woman at work’, published by @thamesandhudson.bsky.social: www.thamesandhudson.com/products/mar...

Mandatory gender pay gap reporting since 2017. In 2025, Monzo, Nationwide, Santander and TSB all reported wider gaps than the year before. Sunlight, it turns out, isn't a disinfectant. Interview with yours truly on my annual one-woman IWD campaign: www.the-heard.co.uk/blog/sharon-...

UK public sector people! It's a fantastic line up for next week's government events for Global Accessibility Awareness Day. Also I'm doing a piece on WCAG 3. If you have a UK public sector email address then sign up here: accessibility.blog.gov.uk/2026/05/11/g... #gaad #accessibility

Slightly delayed by the pre-election period, here are my monthnotes from March and April. For information architecture and navigation changes, read the one from March: weeknot.es/monthnote-ma...

The late and much missed Ross Anderson famously wrote "The idea that complex social problems are amenable to cheap technical solutions is the siren song of the software salesman and has lured many a gullible government department on to the rocks." Today I can also hear him grumbling "oh FFS."

At least 75% of #Masterchef contestants begin with a recipe their mum or nana or nonna taught them. I’m very envious and this is why I could never go on Masterchef. “Inspired by her childhood, Jane is heating a tin of Heinz Toast-topper.”

Fun fact: the magical child safety solution which Jess Philips cited in her resignation letter is a vendor-specific offering, which benefited from an intense PR and lobbying campaign, and was previously praised by ... Prince Andrew. I always keep the receipts. heatherburns.tech/2026/02/20/t...

Civil society is gonna have to start punching back at the far-right bullies in politics and the media, and a big part of that is having a government that gives people confidence that it will side with them as they stand up for social liberalism rather than try to appease its political enemies

Not one of these bastards has a red line, do they? Never a “as an organisation, this is something we cannot support”.

Eldest’s first taste of voting this week. Came down looking frustrated. “Have you seen the news?” I told him to look at the reasons to be positive in the data, beyond the headlines, etc. But still, he said “like, you walk down the street wondering who voted Reform”. Get used to that, dude.

A huge thank you to each and every person who joined us at #CampDigital yesterday, to our wonderful speakers, and our partners! It's always the absolute highlight of our year bringing this brilliant community together, and we hope everyone had as much of a blast as we did. 🚀 Bring on 2027...😉

Interesting analysis for those of us interested in hope and aware of the big graph that shows Reform peaked in October last year and is sliding inexorably down.

To my knowledge… who knows what else is up there 😂 👾

A characteristically inspiring talk yesterday from @rachelcoldicutt.bsky.social at #CampDigital encouraging us all to recognise the power we have, particularly when used collectively. Join the Society of Hopeful Technologists if you’re down with that. buttondown.com/society-of-h...

Archaeologists unearth vintage snacks! Our @uclarchaeology.bsky.social dig in South London mostly focuses on WW2 air raid shelters, but this is glorious crispy nostalgia. 🏺

Well, what a splendiferous day at #CampDigital that was. The curation of talks is always on point, the organisation seamless, and the community who gathers together just lovely. Thanks @shaungomm.bsky.social @catcutmore.bsky.social @hilaryonline.bsky.social and the crew for all the effort and care.

#CampDigital cake report: all very lovely, but the ones with the pink icing came out on top, because: [A] Nice moist sponge [B] pink icing always tastes the best (that’s just science).

Thusly to Manchesterford for that there #CampDigital

Looking forward to seeing lots of you at #CampDigital next week. We’re hiring Service Designers and User Researchers too. If you’d like to chat about these roles you can either catch us at our event (if you’re coming, obvs) or feel free to ping me separately www.nexerdigital.com/news-and-tho...

Hey Siri! Show me a person who is (a) over 30 and/or (b) not massively privileged who thinks this is a good idea. Also, show me a think tank that has spent all their Oracle millions on pro ChatGPT licenses

Great day (GCSE music coursework deadline day) to discover my daughter’s copy of Ableton is ahead of her school’s, and Ableton offers precisely zero backwards compatibility.

And suddenly, #CampDigital is just 1 week away... If you’ve been wondering whether to join us, this is your (friendly) nudge. Expect thoughtful talks, practical takeaways, and good conversations with people who care about building digital services well. ⏰ Standard tix close today lnkd.in/ey-sPrKg

TFW our very own @cocochan.bsky.social not only wins the European Brass Band Championship with her colleagues in Flowers Band, but gets quoted in the BBC article about it #GovDesign #PercussionHero share.google/EuG4GyZC7Iuf...

I’ve posted it before, but it feels evergreen The two hardest problems in Computer Science are 1. Human communication 2. Getting people in tech to believe that human communication is important

Beautiful everyday Ladybird things. First attempts at knitting Artist: Harry Wingfield Fourth Picture Book, 1972

Can't believe there might be a place in AI for massively overconfident self-proclaimed geniuses who believe you can data-logic your way through any complex societal problem if you just reject complexity, empathy, morality and legality as obsolete weaknesses.

One last push for this week's newsletter: "we're describing "AI safety" as technology that is safely created, safely deployed, and safely used and maintained. We're setting a high bar, and it kicks in way before concerns about existential risk become material." buttondown.com/justenoughin...

i’ve worked in tech more than 20 years. it has never been more ridiculous.

One for @hilaryonline.bsky.social

⏰ Countdown to #CampDigital: just 2 weeks left! We're back on the 7th May, and can’t wait for a day of learning, conversation and connection with this brilliant community. Standard ticket sales close on 30th April (one week to go). 🎟️ Check out our schedule and book: lnkd.in/eXA6yUkW

What would be really nice is a clear set of rights-respecting, well-designed principles for digital wellbeing for young people in educational contexts and some inclusive, offline ways to do homework that don't necessitate poking around in an app.

Good policy should always begin by considering the needs of the most vulnerable and excluded people. I'm also interested in how this plays with tentative proposals in the digital ID consultation to introduce digital ID from either birth or at the age of 13.