As a practitioner of Human-Centered Design, empathy is a core skill in the work I do. In No Flex Zone: Empathy Driven Development, Duretti Hirpa writes about how empathy can be a competitive advantage. “We build software for all kinds of people, and empathy helps us to connect to these disparate audiences. We have to choose empathy, but I’d argue, it’s undeniably the ‘one weird trick’ to future-proofing the software engineering.
This week we are marking the sudden passing of our Operations Manager, Nóirín “Trouble” Plunkett, who introduced themselves here just a few short months ago. We are heartbroken, and it has been hard to come to terms with this unexpected loss. Ame and I attended a memorial service in their honor this week in Boston, and we have been reading the multitude of memorials that have been posted online (including this one by Kaia Dekker, which deeply resonated with us).
Last week I went to the SOUPS conference in Ottawa. As a first-time attendee, it was a good opportunity to connect with some members of the academic usable-security community. One of the highlights was keynote speaker Valerie Steeves. Steeves, sharing findings from her Young Canadians in a Wired World research, reported results of an in-depth study of 5,436 Canadians in Grades 4-11. Based on a survey and in-person discussions, she shared sobering findings that kids’ expectations of online privacy are not being met.
Thank you to everyone contributing to the Simply Secure Slack channel. If you’re interested in joining, email slack@simplysecure.org for an invitation. I’m especially eager to get more UX people in privacy and security involved, so spread the world. Here are some highlights from our recent Slack conversations. Sharing the Rationale for UX Decisions Check out Gabriel Tomescu’s The Anatomy of a Credit Card Form sharing the Wave design team’s process for arriving at an elegant, easy-to-use form.
I really enjoyed being part of the emerging-work track, HotPETS, at the Privacy Enhancing Technologies Symposium earlier this month. From meeting lots of great people to getting face-time with the Simply Secure team, Philadelphia was fun. Scout and I presented “Human-Centered Design for Secure Communication: Opportunities to Close the Participation Gap” as part of a session on Privacy and Human Behavior. The session also included some nice qualitative work from Tactical Technologies covering the collaborative and social nature of privacy and ethical implications for researchers working with vulnerable populations.