Why do our favourite apps seemingly get clunkier and more frustrating to use with each update? Tim Bray speculates it’s because product managers are chasing after that fabled UX (user experience) breakthrough that will get them recognition and promotions, but it doesn’t usually pan out when their apps are used by millions of people. He says if businesses took customer retraining into account when estimating the cost of their proposed UX changes, we might see less (but more meaningful) UX changes to apps.
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Societal Issues
AI Predicts Crime A Week In Advance With 90 Per Cent Accuracy
An artificial intelligence model built by Ishanu Chattopadhyay and his colleagues analysed crime data in Chicago from 2014 to 2016 and managed to predict future levels of crime down to the nearest 300 metres, a week before they actually happened. While extremely useful, this artificial intelligence has been shown to expose racial prejudice in law enforcement. Hopefully, as the study’s data and methodology have been made available for others to evaluate, these prejudices can be avoided in the next iteration. Read full article here
Merv
August 15, 2022
