Hacker head on

The design of products and environments to be usable by all people, to the greatest extent possible, without the need for adaptation or specialized design. (The Principles of Universal Design)

In reading a little more about Universal Design I have learned that there are 7 Principals (first drafted in 1997):

Principle 1: Equitable Use
Principle 2: Flexibility in Use
Principle 3: Simple and Intuitive Use
Principle 4: Perceptible Information
Principle 5: Tolerance for Error
Principle 6: Low Physical Effort
Principle 7: Size and Space for Approach and Use

Each principal is broken down into 4 or 5 key points and one in particular leapt out at me.

5d. Discourage unconscious action in tasks that require vigilance.

At the same time as reading about this I have been reading Tijmen Schep’s lovely book “Design my Privacy”. He has 8 principals including:

2. Think like a hacker. Many pitfalls can be avoided by better anticipating and concepting options for abuse.

Many of the big-data gathering social network platforms have had significant investment to make them as usable as possible by as many people as possible – they adhere to a number of the good practices detailed within Universal Design. These platforms are also explicitly designed to encourage unconscious action just when vigilance is what is most needed.

We need to get our hacker heads on.

(The Man With The Rubber Head (1902) via Public Domain Review)

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