This year started with another NEW ADVENTURES conference… and there is no better way to start the new year! Have a look at the Coverage page for links and reactions. I'm merely going to capture parts which particularly resonated with me.
The day began with a thought-provoking talk by Cennydd who challenged us to think deeper about our current work approaches. He argues that our current user-centred design methods do not consider unintentional and long-term effects and that is time to consider the role of design in our future. Not to design 'things' for the future but to design the future. Starting with a rather stark picture of the status quo, it was inspiring to hear Cennydd make the case for moving forward from human-centred design and think beyond common goals, forward in time and encompassing our planet.
Cennydd concluded with a positive message: Change can only happen if we make it happen. Individual change can bring collective change and spread further. I would highly recommend following Cennydd's work!
quoted from newadventuresconf.com/2020We can’t go on like this. In the face of climate crisis, deepening inequality, and widespread automation, our infrastructures and imaginations aren’t ready for the changes ahead. But this is no time for mourning. Designers can rebuild our outdated institutions and prototype better futures to come. Along the way, we’ll reimagine design itself. User-centred methods have blinded us to social and ecological harms; we now need speculative and critical approaches to the world’s biggest challenges. Design in a world on the brink means embracing our moral duties, becoming planetary custodians, and giving the many, not just the few, a stake in the future. Better worlds are possible, if we wish them.
Natalie's talk was a fascinating look into her work as curator of digital design at the V&A museum. She showed examples, such as an early Apple computer and a MakerBot, from a new collection which aims to tell the story of digital design. She told us about the difficulties and issues they face to catalog and archive our digital history. Devices like the iPhone, Nest, or Echo, use proprietary software which means complicated or impossible licensing for museum purposes, for open public access.
quoted from newadventuresconf.com/2020As a curator specialising in collecting our lived experience of digital design, it’s often a fight against time, obsolescence and an unthinkably huge and edgeless system. It’s deeply complex and deeply human, so what would we keep for the future, and what will be left?
If we are, as Amanda Lagervist argues, living with the “persistent presence of the infinite, in the age of temporal instantaneity” what do we understand our digital culture to be? With our digital selves living in places that aren’t often clear to see, strategies to think through our experiences in digital space are vitally important.
Liz just blew my mind. I loved her energy and message and her talk was one of the highlights of the day for me! Like many of us, I've always considered accessibility core to design, one of the main reasons why I love design ~ well, the very reason I moved away from Flash, back in the day (yeah, I know.. I know...). I enjoy learning more about getting closer to truly inclusive design and absolutely loved Liz's fresh perspectives. Taking a critical view at the concept of empathy, she told of disability issues being re/created during design processes which are well-intended yet fail regardless.
I thoroughly enjoyed listening to Liz tell her stories: of the creation of Thisten (audio-to-text transcription platform), of discussions about an “End of disability” panel, of design for and not with the user, of the lack of rigour in design for disability and much more. She closed with a lovely story about a mistaken rescue (*no spoilers), saying :
Not all things need saving. Sometimes they just need to exist.
For this lovely story, do watch the very beginning (at least) of this brilliant talk:
Honoring the Friction of Disability
quoted from newadventuresconf.com/2020When designers and technologists market disability-centric products, they tend to focus on how their 'solution' increases productivity. This has the unintended negative effect of recreating disability when their intent was to ease it. In her presentation, Liz Jackson will discuss the value of letting disabled people inform what work means and how work is done. In doing so, Jackson will offer a new approach to design, not for optimization and self betterment, but rather design that allows people to exist and work and thrive as they are.
It had been too long since I'd seen Laura speak - and I knew I was going to enjoy her talk. And it was excellent! Like Cennydd, Laura began with the current state of affairs - highlighting the truths behind tracking and privacy, a very depressing situation. A look at how so-called 'smart' devices are now spreading without much care given to the aspects of data handling or protection of privacy lead onto the reasons why and how we are all affected.
Luckily, Laura offered plenty of food for thought in form of book recommendations, practical tips and links to ethical software alternatives.
A call for small tech for everyday people! Self-host all the things! Support not-for-profit tech!
quoted from newadventuresconf.com/2020Our every move, habit, and facial expression is tracked and captured by the web and Big Tech at large. We’re told surveillance is the price of using modern technology, and that our personal information is merely used to improve our experiences. Instead, we see data about us being used to perpetuate systems of oppression and discrimination. Being designers who are also users, we also have to reckon with how we both contribute to this surveillance system and are exploited by it.
Despite what we’re so often told, technology doesn’t have to be this way. This talk will explore a few of the practical ways we can design to benefit human welfare, not corporate profits.
The day included two excellent panel discussions, lead by Jeff Veen - who broadcast the conversation live on Presentable, his podcast on Designing the future. I've been following Jeff's work for as long as I've been working on the web, and it was a true pleasure.
To get a flavour of the day - listen to these two episodes:
#79: Presentable Live from the New Adventures Conference, Part 1
#80: Presentable Live from the New Adventures Conference, Part 2
This year, this lovely, lovely conference came at a very sad moment in time. Though somehow, it was perfectly timed, still an EU event, just about... How I wish I could put Brexsh** aside at least momentarily to enjoy days like these with a more carefree and optimistic mind. (It's simply too difficult ... my heart is broken.)
Saying that, there was no better place to be, no nicer group of people to be with and no better feeling than the shared concerns about our planet, our humanity and our rights. As always, New Adventures reflected our changing digital lives, brought to light flaws in methods and thinking, and challenged us to do better, as individuals and as a collective.
Putting together my write-up of this year's conference, it is clear that themes from last year continued. All quite a depressing state of affairs in many aspects, lots to consider, many challenges to tackle and much to change. All of which might have meant quite a solemn page. But it ended up quite the opposite. I love the fact that this write-up is looking quite cheerful instead :) As always, I used the conference site and its colour scheme as basis. This year with the 5 colours, for the 5 conference years—these colours are so perfectly in tune with one of the images on Cennydd's slides that this vibrance naturally evolved.
Let it be an omen of better times ahead :)
Thank you, Simon, Geri, Relly et al
for another wonderful NEW ADVENTURES!
May there be many more ❤