This article contains 3 images. You will find them at the very end of the article.

This article contains 514 words.

Video of the week: Designing Civility–Caroline Sinders - Web Directions

Video of the week: Designing Civility–Caroline Sinders

John Allsopp

19th February, 2019

@johnallsopp

For much of the history of the Web, conversations and other digital analogues of real world social interaction have been a key part of user engagement. From Usenet, IRC to AOL Chatrooms and now Github, Reddit, and Twitter, design patterns like threaded commenting, liking and favoriting, up (and down voting) lie at the heart of social media, online platforms like Stack Overflow (and GitHub) make up our communication tools. With digital literacy at an all time high, new communication models are starting to usurp SMS messages.

Digital interactions, so utterly commonplace, when given not much additional thought can seem overall benign. But in the era of the Arab Spring, the current US Election, Gamergate, and the Panama Papers, digital tools are the catalyst and common grounds of “robust discussions”. But do they really give rise to civil behavior, and benign outcomes? Or are they fundamentally problematic?

In this stand out presentation from our Direction conference in 2016, Caroline Sinders, machine-learning-design researcher and artist, asked “Can we design our way to better, more healthy online behavior? Can empathy really be designed for web?”

Address challenges like these at Design ’19

If these challenges interest you, start planning your trip to Design ’19, our product design conference, in Melbourne, April 11 & 12.

Want more like this?

Get on the waitlist for Conffab, our upcoming site featuring hundreds of world class presentations from Web Directions events (and more).

Great reading, every weekend.

We round up the best writing about the web and send it your way each Friday morning.

delivering year round learning for front end and full stack professionals

Learn more about us

[Web Directions] is a delicious mix of things educational, social and mind-blowing. It’s time out from the hurly-burly to step back, get some perspective, and develop new ways forward, fortified with a whole lot of new stuff in your head.

Chris Stephens Technology Director, Mozo

Each year we have 6 unique online conferences for front end developers, plus Remixed, a free event that brings together some of the highlights from the previous year.

The best of 2021, remixed, and free!

Online, globallyJanuary 2022

Learn More

The conference CSS deserves

Online, globallyApril 2022

Learn More

a conference on front end performance

Online, globallyMay 2022

Learn More

a conference all about JavaScript

Online, globallyJuly 2022

Learn More

a conference on progressive web apps and web platform

Online, globallySept 2022

Learn More

accessibility engineering for front end developers

Online, globallyOctober 2022

Learn More

privacy, security, identity for front end developers

Online, globallyDecember 2022

Learn More