Design, Digested 34 – Sterile aesthetics, privacy, dyslexia
How technology is shaping the physical world, spying appliances, dyslexia-friendly typefaces and more.

The subway that sunk
How Silicon Valley helps spread the same sterile aesthetic across the world.
Digital platforms like Foursquare are producing “a harmonization of tastes.”
🔗 Read The Subway That Sunk on The Verge
Tour Amazon’s dream home, where every appliance is also a spy
Halloween’s spookiest story: here’s everything Amazon learns about your family, your home and you.
🔗 Tour Amazon’s dream home on The Washington Post
Humane by design
A resource that provides guidance for designing ethically humane digital products through patterns focused on user well-being.
🔗 Discover the humane by design principles
There’s nothing comic about dyslexia
Comic Sans helps 780 million dyslexic people around the world read better, but it’s the most hated typeface by designers. The organisation Dyslexia Scotland created a font guide to inspire designers create dyslexia-friendly typefaces.
🔗 Hear Comic Sans’ voice and be inspired
Thoughts on skin tone and text descriptions
In a blog post on writing great alt text, Jake Archibald asked “Should skin tone be mentioned in alt text?”. It’s a good question, and one I’ve asked myself as a blind person, so Jake’s post has prompted me to do some thinking out loud…
🔗 Continue reading Léonie Watson’s article on her website
The crash dummy aimed at protecting women drivers
A team of Swedish engineers has finally developed the first dummy, or to use the more technical term - seat evaluation tool - designed on the body of the average woman.
🔗 Read the article on BBC News
This 33-year-old made more than 1,000 Wikipedia bios for unknown women scientists
Jessica Wade began writing Wikipedia biographies about women and minority scientists who never got their due — from employers, from other scientists, from the public.
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