Author

Duncan Stephen

@duncanstephen.net

I lead teams and organisations to make human-centred decisions. Lead content designer and information architect at the Scottish Government. he/him https://duncanstephen.net/

Posts

Publications

Duncan StephenJul 3, 2026

Restoring the elements of user experience

Some human-centred practitioners have been consigned to increasingly superficial considerations. Artificial intelligence presents an opportunity for us to bring the focus back to the fundamentals that make our work important and successful.

Artificial intelligenceClaude

Duncan StephenJun 25, 2026

Ethical personalisation of public services — Talk at Services Week

We have developed a set of ethical personalisation principles to guide our early work to deliver personalised public services. I will present about this work as part of Services Week 2026.

EthicsMobile apps

Duncan StephenJun 22, 2026

Don’t make me thick

We say “don’t make me think”, and “less is more”. But a naive application of these principles risks limiting our users when we should be helping them grow.

ArchitectureBerrypicking

Duncan StephenJun 12, 2026

Towering Inferno

I don’t normally write about music any more, but I feel compelled to write about the new Boards of Canada album, Inferno. It has far exceeded my expectations. I can’t remember the last time I was so immediately hooked on an album — 15 or 20 years ago, or longer.

Aphex TwinArtificial intelligence

Duncan StephenMay 26, 2026

Grounding AI the webby way — Taxonomy Boot Camp London 2026 takeaways

There was a heavy focus on artificial intelligence. But what really struck me was that the semantic approaches that are preparing us for our AI future are well-established web standards that have been around for decades.

AmazonArtificial intelligence

Duncan StephenMay 21, 2026

From answer engines to learning engines — Why fast answers are like fast food

People crave fast answers. But the purpose of information systems is to help people gain knowledge. So we should seek better questions.

Answer enginesArtificial intelligence