I’ve been enjoying the videos from AI Now, an exploration of artificial intelligence and ethics hosted by the U.S. White House and NYU’s Information Law Institute. Co-chairs Kate Crawford and Simply Secure co-founder Meredith Whittaker put together a …
Last week, I encountered discussions of drones in two unimaginably different contexts: in an academic presentation at USENIX Security 2016 and on the TV comedy Portlandia. As distant genres, they offer different perspectives that have equally …
Web browsers are utility software; they are designed to work for all people. Not only must their features meet the needs of average members of a population, they must also work for people with special needs. As Firefox says on its mobile …
Great user experiences are born through the hard work of professionals with a variety of skills. As illustrated by the UX unicorn we've seen before, there's a lot that goes into what we call "design" or "usability.
Building great software requires understanding what users want and need. If you’re building privacy-preserving software, this includes understanding the privacy threats that your users face. One of the participants in Ame’s NYC study.
When Ame set …
On Monday I had the pleasure of speaking at a Workshop on Cryptographic Agility and Interoperability held at the National Academies by the Forum on Cyber Resilience.
The assembled group of academics, policy-makers, and practitioners touched on a …
For the past two years John Maeda (whose previous roles include Professor at the MIT Media Lab and President of the Rhode Island School of Design) has issued a Design In Tech Report. This influential analysis, which Maeda presents at SXSW and has …
Software communicates its values via its user experience (UX) by making some actions easy and others harder. For example, mobile apps can be configured to automatically opt users in to location sharing, and require people to dig through multiple …
I really enjoyed my time at the Internet Freedom Festival in Valencia, Spain. I was inspired and humbled to meet so many talented people as part of a global event about internet freedom. From powerful conversations about privilege to UX design jam …
This is the first in a short series of posts looking at Facebook's "Privacy Checkup" feature. This installment examines why even privacy advocates who avoid social-media sites should take time to understand it and related user experiences. The next …
Messaging with friends and colleagues is rewarding – but sharing contact information is awkward. Many people want to preserve their privacy by carefully controlling who gets their contact information, and choose not to broadcast their email address …
It’s always great to attend security and privacy conferences in person. But in cases where you have to miss an event, online videos of the talks can be a great way to stay current with the ongoing conversation.
Art, Design, and The Future of Privacy …
Last week I went to the O'Reilly Design Conference and enjoyed learning about emerging UX trends. The conference was full of high-quality presentations on UX practice. Here are three of my favorite talks.
The Many Minds of the Maker Knight-Mozilla …
It can be hard to communicate about security-related features with users who aren't already security experts. From word choice to the level of detail included, it's easy to overwhelm people with information, leave them scared, or bore them to …
Users of the Facebook iPhone app were recently surprised by a new feature offering to “Add the last link you copied?” into a status update. Many people did not expect to see a complete URL that they had put onto the clipboard from another app, …
We prefer to use open-source software as a matter of principle. We believe that putting software code in the open is the best way for the public to build trust in it. You might find it curious, then, that we choose to foster communication and …
This is the third and final installment in the series on Lessons from Architecture School: Lessons for IoT Security. You can also read the first and second installments, or download the presentation. Thank you to the audience at Solid Conference for …