Link archive: May 28th, 2019

Plotters, pantsers, and user onboarding | Krystal Higgins

Krystal compares two styles of writing and applies them to onboarding.

Opinion | It’s 2059, and the Rich Kids Are Still Winning - The New York Times

The New York Times is publishing science-fictional op-eds. The first one is from Ted Chiang on the Gene Equality Project forty years in our future:

White supremacist groups have claimed that its failure shows that certain races are incapable of being improved, given that many — although by no means all — of the beneficiaries of the project were people of color. Conspiracy theorists have accused the participating geneticists of malfeasance, claiming that they pursued a secret agenda to withhold genetic enhancements from the lower classes. But these explanations are unnecessary when one realizes the fundamental mistake underlying the Gene Equality Project: Cognitive enhancements are useful only when you live in a society that rewards ability, and the United States isn’t one.

Obama’s Presidential Library Should Be Digital-First - The Atlantic

Given its origins and composition, the Obama library is already largely digital. The vast majority of the record his presidency left behind consists not of evocative handwritten notes, printed cable transmissions, and black-and-white photographs, but email, Word documents, and JPEGs. The question now is how to leverage its digital nature to make it maximally useful and used.

W3C and WHATWG to work together to advance the open Web platform | W3C Blog

It’s Armistice Day in the world of HTML:

WHATWG maintains the HTML and DOM Living Standards.

W3C stops independent publishing of a designated list of specifications related to HTML and DOM and instead will work to take WHATWG Review Drafts to W3C Recommendations.

It feels like the loop is finally being closed on what I wrote about in the opening chapter of HTML5 For Web Designers back in 2010.

Evolution of Webdesign

Funny because it’s true.

How Ireland became Europe’s data watchdog - BBC News

The coming GDPR storm:

Ireland’s Data Protection Commissioner, Helen Dixon, is expected to circulate her decisions on some cases by July or August, with final rulings made by the end of the year.

(That’s my sister-in-law, that is.)