Superbloom

Are you stuck on how to build or communicate a feature?  Not sure how to get user feedback?  Want to learn more about how the consent user experience has changed?  Are you eager to find out how to navigate design choices while prioritizing human rights?  Is digital infrastructure funding a topic you are keen to hear more about?  Want to dive deep into data colonialism? We have some answers. 

Simply Secure will be hosting five sessions at the second virtual Mozilla Festival (Monday, March 7 - Thursday, March 10 2022). If you’ll be there, we’d love to see you, learn about your work, and collaborate. Come join us!

You can register for MozFest here, and below are links to each of the sessions.

Learning Decolonial Practices from the Community

https://schedule.mozillafestival.org/session/UB79HT-1

When: March 7 @ 7:00 - 8:30 AM EST / 12:00 - 1:30 PM GMT

Datafication is one major tactic of data colonialism. Is it truly inevitable or is it a myth waiting to be unraveled and reclaimed? This session aims to bring together designers, researchers, technologists, and community members from across the globe to discuss the manifestations and impacts of data colonialism on the way technology is designed, learn from current decolonial practices, and explore different approaches to resistance in everyday life.

Below is the agenda of the session:

  1. Introduction & Housekeeping
  2. Group activity: Defining data colonialism
  3. Group activity: Identifying data colonialism’s every day’s manifestations and impacts
  4. Individual/Group activity: Exploring community’s decolonial practices
  5. Discussion and Closing

The session will be facilitated using Miro + a video call platform.

Before the session: 

 We prepare a simple activity for you to explore your relationship with data. The worksheet can be downloaded here.

 We suggest that you should use a personal computer or a laptop to ensure better accessibility and connection. 

UX & Design Speed Dating

https://schedule.mozillafestival.org/session/CYFY7Y-1

When: March 8 @ 10:00 - 11:00 AM EST / 3:00 - 4:00 PM GMT

Stuck on how to build or communicate a feature? Not sure how to get user feedback? Want to brainstorm some design alternatives for your tool or process? Thinking about how to engage users in your design process? Then this workshop is for you!

In the session, participants will have the opportunity to meet with design and usability practitioners in the community, with a special focus on designing for privacy. We will set up 10-15 minute “speed dating” time slots and allow participants to rotate through the presenters so that they can get feedback from multiple perspectives on whatever design and UX challenges they bring to share.

Participants should bring something to share their work with the UX practitioners (an idea, a problem to work on, design sketches, a prototype) and will leave with feedback, designs, tools, strategies, and follow up opportunities to get support in their work.

https://schedule.mozillafestival.org/session/9RQHNE-1

When: March 8 @ 1:00 - 2:00 PM EST / 6:00 - 7:00 PM GMT

Every day tech platforms confront us with options about how our data is used, and pop-ups with language like “this website uses cookies”, “accept” and “continue” are an accepted part of the online experience. Consenting to sharing data is so strongly encouraged by the platforms that end-user choice is not the right framework. Privacy regulations such as the forthcoming Digital Service Act from the European Union and California’s Consumer Privacy Act are initial attempts to empower individuals to give meaningful consent to data collection, but there is much more to be done. 

There are three ways to participate in this session. 

  1. We invite submissions via this Airtable link to an online gallery exploring subject of online consent from the perspectives of design practitioners, researchers, and end-users that

  2. i. Document the status quo: What interface mechanisms are used to collect consent data? What’s confusing or manipulative? Helpful and empowering? 

    ii. Imagine a bolder future: What does meaningful consent look like? How will we know if new design patterns lead to different results? How can we shift power back to end-users?

    View the gallery any time during MozFest. Stay tuned for how to access the collection.

  3. Join us for a discussion on reimagining consent on March 8 @ 1:00 - 2:00 PM EST / 6:00 - 7:00 PM GMT

Busting the Dark Patterns: A Human-Rights-Centered Design Approach

https://schedule.mozillafestival.org/session/38ELGY-1

When: March 9 @ 7:00 - 8:00 AM EST / 12:00 - 1:00 PM GMT

Dark Patterns, also referred to as deceptive design, are interface design tactics in digital products to persuade you into doing things you would otherwise not do. It has been so commonly used in today’s online tools, platforms, and services without questioning that such practices have become defaults-by-design. Despite the rising public outcry against the manipulative nature of Dark Patterns and its contribution to undermining people’s agency and human rights online, efforts to restrain Dark Patterns remain monolateral, often through the policy channel. However, shifting the culture of Dark Patterns takes a much more comprehensive approach that involves a key stakeholder: the user research and design community. For decades, the design community has been through many iterations to define “ethical design” and set a standard on what is good design. In this workshop, we offer a redefinition of “ethical design” by providing a human-rights-centered design approach. Built upon a cross-disciplinary working session between designers, policy experts, and researchers to list simple actions to prevent Dark Patterns, in this workshop, we will be introducing a guide for designers to navigate through design choices while prioritizing human rights. We welcome participants who are interested in product design processes to come to the workshop and collectively brew practices and concerns that are key to building a culture against Dark Patterns and protect people’s privacy and other digital rights as technology evolves.

Defeating Deceptive Design: Getting Control of Our Online Lives

https://schedule.mozillafestival.org/session/J7WKEE-1

When: March 9 @ 10:00 - 11:00 AM EST / 3:00 - 4:00 PM GMT

Deceptive designs, also known as “dark patterns”, are design practices built into user interfaces, either intentionally or unintentionally, that obscure or impair consumer autonomy or choice and can alter decision-making or trick users into taking actions they might not otherwise take. Deceptive Designs go to the heart of people’s ability to live their lives online with dignity, autonomy, and a sense of trust in the products and services offered to them by businesses and governments alike. We will share findings from our initial research on deceptive design as a baseline. This session invites everyone — policymakers, civic tech practitioners, private sector, civil servants, and the people of the internet — to share your lived experience, discuss opportunities and barriers to change, and brainstorm interventions for addressing deceptive design globally using our human-centered approach. We are using this tested approach to better understand the many challenges around deceptive design and co-create policy solutions that promote trusted design patterns. Join us to help set the priorities of the Web Foundation’s Tech Policy Design Lab on Tackling Deceptive Design.

Digital Infrastructure Funder’s Toolkit

https://schedule.mozillafestival.org/session/JEU8YX-1

When: March 10 @ 10:00 - 11:00 AM EST / 3:00 - 4:00 PM GMT

In this cafe-style session, we will share the Digital Infrastructure Funder’s Toolkit - a project supported by the Open Collective Foundation’s Digital Infrastructure Grant - with the community at MozFest. The toolkit is an implementation framework for funders of digital infrastructure with guides, programming, and models, along with narratives of funding in open source and digital infrastructure, and regional contexts about funding digital infrastructure in different parts of the world.

First, we will give an overview of the toolkit. Next, we will break out into groups with our participating global regional partners who will share out and lead discussions on digital infrastructure funding from their regional contexts.

Credits: Georgia Bullen, Ame Elliott, Susan Kennedy, Ngọc Triệu

Images: Header Image Credit: MF Local Production Office // Nathan Reinds // www.nathanreinds.nl // Attribution 2.0 Generic (CC BY 2.0) // License // Disclaimer

Digital Infrastructure Funder’s Toolkit Credit: Ngọc Triệu