DPL Reading List – July 22, 2016
Here are some of the articles we’ve been reading around this office this week.
13 Things Successful People Do Right Before Bed – “Successful people understand that their success starts and ends with their mental and physical health, which is almost entirely dependent upon their getting enough sleep. That is why good bedtime routines are a key ritual for so many of them.”
Rude UX — The Gall Of Pokémon Go (Thanks to Jarrod Wubbels for recommending this article) – “Designers should consider the implications of AR game play in the context of different spaces, then respect and protect spaces that require different behavior. By respecting and protecting these spaces, we’re also protecting our users from inappropriate behavior and negative consequences.”
Diversity In Tech FAQ v0.1 (Thanks to Cassey Lottmann for recommending this article) – “For too long, the industry that I love has gotten away with flimsy arguments cloaked in the myth of meritocracy. This has real consequences for a sector that desperately needs diverse talent. Those of us who have dedicated our careers to diversity in tech do so because we care deeply about building an industry where all people can thrive and feel supported.”
Don’t Replace People. Augment Them. – “Those weavers who smashed machine looms in Ned Ludd’s rebellion of 1811 didn’t realize that descendants of those machines would make unbelievable things possible. We’d tunnel through mountains and under the sea, we’d fly through the air, crossing continents in hours, we’d build cities in the desert with buildings a half mile high, we’d more than double average human lifespan, we’d put spacecraft in orbit around Jupiter, we’d smash the atom itself!”
Hamburger Menus And Hidden Navigation Hurt UX Metrics (Thanks to Jarrod Wubbels for recommending this article) – “Responsive design has many merits; however, one of its less fortunate effects has been an excessive popularity of mobile-first designs that translate poorly onto larger desktop screens. To be clear, “mobile-first” itself is not the issue. Rather, the issue is taking sufficiently good mobile designs and porting them to desktops where they do not work as well. Mobile-first should not equal mobile-only.”
The Most Dangerous Code In The Web Browser (Thanks to Cassey Lottmann for recommending this article) – “Did you know that the web browser extension you installed a long time ago (say, AdBlock), can probably see all your passwords, look at any website you visit using your credentials and could trivially send all that information to an arbitrary web server? That’s pretty scary, and in this blog post I will explain how security for extensions currently works. I will also outline research towards a better extension security model for browsers that protects your sensitive information.”
Learning To Code As A 30-Year-Old Kid With Apple’s Swift Playgrounds – “Swift Playgrounds seems like a promising start—a good way to teach kids and neophytes the basics of coding in general and Swift in particular—but it also seems like just a first step down a path that will eventually lead to iOS apps being developed on iOS devices. Even if you never think you’ll use it, it’s worth keeping an eye on. It’s even worth trying if you’re not a kid—you might just learn something.”
