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Dewey Library - QH507.L47 2019

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Hayden Library - QH319.A1 L36 2018

Dewey Library - QH332.B25 2019

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Hayden Library - QH601.C43 2019

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Dewey Library - QH501.D38 2019

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Dewey Library - QH438.4.S73 B53 2019

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Hayden Library - QH588.S83 S74 2019

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Hayden Library - QH450.B34 2018

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In her PWAs, Payment Experiences and More presentation at Google Conversions 2018 in Dublin Ireland, Jenny Gove talked through the new capabilities available on the Web to build fast and engaging products. Here's my notes from her talk:

• The Web was built for desktop devices, not mobile. Native apps, in contrast, were built from the ground up for mobile. So it's no surprise that Web sites are still catching up in terms of experience. While there are great mobile Web experiences, most have a lot of work to do.
• To help incentivize people to improve mobile Web experiences, Google added the "mobile-friendly" label to search results. When 85% of results in mobile search met this criteria, the label was removed.
• Progressive Web apps bring richer experiences to the Web through a set of technologies that enable fast, installable, reliable, and engaging. They're the next step in making great Web experiences.
• Speed is critical for mobile Web sites but it takes a mobile Web page a median time of 9.3 seconds to load on 3G. Pinterest reduced their time for interactive from 23 seconds to 5.6 seconds with their PWA. This resulted in a 60% increase in engagement and a 2-3% improvement over their native app.
• You can improve speed with technical changes and design (to manage perception). Lighthouse is a tool from Google that shows time to meaningful paint and other relevant metrics for improving technical performance. You can manage user perception of speed using skeletong screens and gradual loading of content.
• PWAs allow you to add mobile Web pages to your phone's home screens. On Android these apps show up in app switchers and setting screens.
• Service workers in PWAs enable reliable experiences when there is no network or slow and intermittent network connections. Even in developed markets, slow network conditions often exist. Service workers are now available in all major Web browsers.
• PWAs make use of Web technologies at the right time and place like app permissions, push notifications, payment request APIs, and better form interactions (autocomplete, input types, etc.)
• 42% of top sites in Europe don't show the appropriate keyboard for specific input types. 27% of the top site in Europe didn't identify which form fields are optional.
• Google Search uses a PWA to enable offline queries and send results when people are back online using notifications. With a PWA they were able to use 50% fewer external JavaScript requests.
• In the Starbucks PWA, daily & monthly active users have nearly doubled (compared ot the previous Web experience) and orders placed in the PWA are growing by more than 12% week over week.
• While mobile has really driven PWA requirements, desktop devices also benefit from PWA app switching and integration. Service workers, push notifications, and other new Web technologies work on desktop as well.
• It's possible to run PWAs on the desktop in app windows which can be themed. These apps need to use responsive design to adapt from small sized windows to full-sized screens.
• What's next for PWAs? Support for Windows, macOS and Linux, Keyboard Shortcuts, Badging the launch icon, and Link capturing.
• Watch the full video of Jenny's: PWAs, Payment Experiences and More talk

At the Micromobility conference in Richmond, CA Horace Dediu talked through why micromobility solutions need to exist and why they are set up to succeed today. Here’s my notes from his talk on The Reason for Micromobility:

• The wealthiest nations have always been those with the highest rates of urbanization. Across the World, urbanization continues to increase in all countries and is expected to reach 50% in most countries by 2025. 6.7 billion people will live in cities by 2050. This is easy to predict so you can plan on it happening.
• In cities, people are closer together and interact more. That’s how you create wealth and prosperity so it’s no wonder this trend will grow.
• The World today consumes kilometers through land, air, and sea kilometers. 52 trillion kilometers are traveled per year across the globe. Half of these miles are in cars and low efficiency. In developed countries today (US and Europe), most trips are in personal vehicles like cars. Some of these car miles need to be reallocated.
• The most common distance traveled by New York taxis is 1.4 miles. Less than 2% are 5 miles or more. 90% of all cars in trips are less than 20 miles. 162 billion trips per year in the United States are less than ten miles. Short trips consume more time and cost more money than long trips as well.
• The addressable market for micromobility today is zero to five miles. That adds up to 4 trillion kilometers per year.
• Cities are going to be the predominant place people live. Short trips are going to be the dominant type of travel. They’ll consume the most time and account for the most consumer spending.
• There’s a remarkable consistency for modes of travel across the World. Cars are used the same in the US as in the UK and Switzerland. Scooters have a shorter average distance (.4 miles) than e-bikes (.8 miles). Each mode (of transportation) has a clear distance distribution and thereby unique characteristics.
• We can begin to segment the transportation market by distance traveled. Regardless of vendors, modes of transportation cluster along similar usage models.
• Given these usage model differences, can we move automobile mobility to micromobility? There’s currently a gap between average car distances and average scooter/bike distances. However we see cabs and powerful 2-wheelers beginning to cross this chasm.
• There’s trillions of car kilometers that can potentially be moved to more efficient solutions. That’s the challenge for micromobility today.
• The first experiments in micromobilty have been very successful in delivering many miles. Bird hit 10M rides in 320 days since launch. Lime hit 10M in 400 days. The slope of growth for these companies is steeper than for Uber and Lyft. 100M rides per year is the run rate for several of these companies.

In his Putting the 'Design' in Design Systems presentation at An Event Apart in Seattle, Dan Mall talked about the benefits of design systems for designers and how ensure they can be realized. Here's my notes from his talk:

• Most content in design systems are not for designers but for developers. This helps to scale design efforts when there's a lot more developers than designers (typical in many companies).
• But where does design and designers fit within a design system? Are they no longer required?
• Design can be part of strategy and big picture thinking but most designers are good at making designs and iterating them, not working across the company on "big D" design.
• When it comes time to make a design system, most people start with "let's make some components!". This is problematic because its missing "for ____". What's the purpose of our design system? Who is it for?
• Design systems need a focus. One company's design system should not work for another company. A good "onlyness" statement can only apply to one company, it would not work for other companies.
• Design system principles can guide your work. Some are universal like: accessible, simple. Others should be very specific so you can focus on what matters for you.
• An audit of common components in design systems shows the coverage varies between companies; the components can focus on their core value.
• Instead of starting with making design components, think about what components you actually need. Then make some pilot screens as proofs of concept for a design system. Will you be able to make the right kinds of things?
• Don't start at the abstract level, start at the extract level. Take elements from within pilot designs and look for common components to pull out for reuse. Don't try to make it cover all use cases yet. As you work through a few pilots, expand components to cover additional use cases you uncover.
• The most exciting design systems are boring. About 80% of the components you're making can be covered by your design system. They allow you to remake product experiences quickly. The remaining 20% is what designers still need to do: custom design work.
• A good design system takes care of the stuff you shouldn't reinvent and allows you to spend time on where it matters.
• Creative people are driven by autonomy, mastery, and purpose. A good design system will enable all of these.
• The most common benefits of design systems are greater efficiency and consistency. But another important one is relief from having to do mundane design work. (editor's note: like maintaining & updating a design system!)
• The real value of a design system is to help us get back to our real work.

In his Third-Party Software and the Fate of the Web presentation at An Event Apart in Denver, Trent Walton talked through the impact of third party scripts on Web sites and how to ensure they don't degrade performance and user experience. Here's my notes from his talk:

• With most client work, no one is paying attention to the impact of third parties on Web sites.
• Third parties are requests on a Web page coming from an external URL. Examples: TypeKit, Google Analytics, etc. People use third parties to get data to make product decisions, earn income (ads, marketing), add content (videos, fonts), add functionality (comments, chat, etc.).
• But third parties can also create issues. Loading scripts and files can really slow things down or provide an inconsistent UI and create privacy issues based on how they handle user data.
• If you care about the final deliverable for a Web site, you need to be aware of the impact of third parties on your product. All the work we do on optimizing images, code, and designs can be quickly outweighed by the addition of third party scripts to a site.
• Starting with the categories of 3rd party scripts helps you get a good sense of why people are using them: Advertising, A/B testing Tools, Analytics, Social Media, CDN, Customer Interaction, Comments, Essential.
• Looking at the top third party requests across the Alexa top 46 sites in the United States shows 213 different domain sources. The average site has 22 different domains. News sites have the most third party domains.
• Several tools can help you understand what's happening with third party scripts on a site. Request Map Generator can help you create a visualization of the different third parties on your Web site to help create awareness of what's happening on your site. Chrome's Lighthouse tool has a similar set of capabilities.
• How do third parties impact end users? Does your site depend on third parties to function? As more people block these components, will it break? Re-marketing can create creepy experiences as content begins "follow" you online.
• Web builders are on the front lines. We can advocate for the right approaches to privacy and data management. Though some of these conversations may be hard, it's our responsibility to end users.
• Web browsers now have tools to help you manage third party scripts like cookies and cross-site tracking. But most people are likely not turing on the stricter versions of these features.
• If you control a site, you can decide what third parties you want to include. But what about sites you don't control? Consider the perspective of your clients/companies and present data that explains the impact of third party on conversion and user experience.
• Establish some standards for third party integrations: determine the value, avoid redundant services, work with a performance budget, comply with privacy policies.
• Audit the third parties on your site and include data that illustrates how they perform against your standards. Compare this audit to competitors in order to set benchmarks or comparisons.
• Get specific insights: there's usually a few instances of third parties that have become redundant, unnecessary, or are blocking page rendering. These wins create credibility and illustrate impact.
• Maintain ongoing conversations with teams to make effective decisions about third parties on your sites.

How H&M, Zara and Marks & Spencer are buying viscose from highly polluting factories in Asia. By Natasha Hurley.

Power rests in the hands of a corrupt military and political oligarchy that denies people the right to self-determination, reports Hamza Hamouchene.

Marc Robert's monthly cartoon, from our June magazine.

What is an internationalist to make of Donald J Trump’s vow to blow up the North American Free Trade Agreement? Mark Engler asks.

It’s against the Constitution, and means Norway will not respect the Paris Agreement, argues Tina Andersen Vågenes.

Kim Jong-un's headline grabbing aggressive irrationalism takes some beating (though he might have met his match in recent times...)

The guerrillas are handing weapons over to the UN, but they are in fear. Thomas Mortensen reports from Urabá.

A gesture of love and solidarity from estates and communities in East London to Grenfell and their local community.

KidZania is an unashamed shrine to the sterile, dystopian human-made landscapes, comedian Steve Parry writes.

We talked to homeless in different countries and they revealed housing insecurity's different causes around the world.

According to reports, the world's biggest energy group announced a first-quarter record profit of $10.9 billion but its oil production fell almost 10 per cent in the first three months of the year. Moreover, its refining profits also slumped. Reports said that the company's broader market rallied, but Exxon shares fell 3.6 per cent to $89.70.

Speaking to reporters in Madrid, he said ''The pressure is to suspend a few more food articles, If rightly or wrongly people perceive that commodities- futures trading is contributing to a speculation-driven rise in prices, then in a democracy you will have to heed that voice''.