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Alastair Somerville

@acuity.design

3.2K followers 1.2K following 11K posts

Clarity and kindness as foundations for work. Information perception in physical & digital places. Facilitation and workshop design for codesign and civic assemblies. Public prototyping on BlueSky. He/him

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Alastair Somerville @acuity.design · 8d

Short post acuity.design/ask-question... on the difficult question of #CivicAssembly questions

Diagram on the need for clear questions that are answerable and actionable

Alastair Somerville @acuity.design · 8h

Just realised I'll be able to go see this in February

Alastair Somerville @acuity.design · 8h

Review www.theguardian.com/games/2025/o... East German computer gaming exhibition on now in Berlin

www.theguardian.com

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Alastair Somerville @acuity.design · 9h

Moonlighting TV series on STV player. Never really saw it during the 80’s.

Pilot episodes starts with the menacing loading of a Walkman and the terror of Jogging.

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Alastair Somerville @acuity.design · 11h

Artist’s studio, writer’s den

Alastair Somerville @acuity.design · 11h

AI that writes like an Irish monk with no spaces just to fool systems that look for Em Dashes and other signs of automation.

Alastair Somerville @acuity.design · 11h

Museum accessibility project

• months after exhibition opened
• very limited time to bid
• delivery asap without testing

🤷🏼‍♂️

Reposted by Alastair Somerville

Richard Morton @accessibleweb.bsky.social · 1d

I am recruiting a Senior Accessibility Specialist to be part of the Government Digital Service accessibility and digital inclusion team. Applications open until Sunday 26th October. www.civilservicejobs.service.gov.uk/csr/index.cg...

#a11y #Accessibility #AccessibilityRegulations

Quick Check Needed

www.civilservicejobs.service.gov.uk

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Alastair Somerville @acuity.design · 11h

Thinking that Vectors made more Systems Thinking than anything else. Directions of force, dynamics - all the stuff that collapses in fixed diagrams.

Reposted by Alastair Somerville

Michael Kibedi @uxmichael.co · 15h

This Friday. Bristol. There still a few tickets left 🏃🏾💨

My talk? “Death, and how tech forgot about mortality”

webdevconf.com

WDC2025 - October 10 2025, Watershed, Bristol, UK

WDC is the web conference based in Bristol, taking place in autumn each year. With great speakers and attendees alike.

webdevconf.com

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Alastair Somerville @acuity.design · 13h

When museum open licences go wrong...

The Ferret @theferret.scot · 13h

A months-long investigation by The Ferret and a group of international journalists found there have been 40 propaganda animations produced by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) in the past two years – including several using the Scottish Maritime Museum’s 3D scans
theferret.scot/idf-s...

Reposted by Alastair Somerville

Dr Dean Burnett @garwboy.bsky.social · 14h

Your brain works fine when you're under 25 (no matter how 'inconvenient' this fact may be)

theneuroscienceofeve...

The myth that 'if you're under 25, you're not mature enough to decide anything' refuses to die. But it absolutely should

#Brains #Development #Maturity

Your brain works fine when you're under 25 (no matter how 'inconvenient' this fact may be)

The claim that, if you're under 25, your brain isn't fully developed, so you can't be trusted to make mature decisions, or held responsible for actions, is very common. But also very wrong.

theneuroscienceofeverydaylife.substack.com

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Alastair Somerville @acuity.design · 14h

"I don't write reports because I don't think people read them and change what they already plan to do. I design workshops and artefacts so people can discover what needs to be done together and then share those ideas clearly with more people over time."

Writing to new client about what I try to do.

Alastair Somerville @acuity.design · 14h

Fast and Reckless Product Management

Fast or slow, reckless or careful diagram. AI as fast/reckless government as slow/careful

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Alastair Somerville @acuity.design · 15h

Politicians and governments have to care about consequences across communities and across time in ways that businesses don’t (unless regulated by governments). They can go bankrupt, they can just stop serving people, they are not the same. Politics is serious, government is serious.

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Alastair Somerville @acuity.design · 15h

Slightly weird to be both advising on emotional/temporal narratives of future hope for projects by radical ecological activists and by large power infrastructure companies.

Both unable to understand how to talk to people with clarity and involve them to help seriously.

Reposted by Alastair Somerville

Keith W. Dickinson @keithwdickinson.bsky.social · 17h

Today is a day when arts degrees are worthless, but the product of those degrees is so valuable it would kill an entire industry if they were made to pay for it.

The Verge @theverge.com · May 26

Nick Clegg says asking artists for use permission would ‘kill’ the AI industry

Paul McCartne, Elton John and others signed an open letter.

buff.ly

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Alastair Somerville @acuity.design · 15h

Perhaps we have useless/unserious politicians because they are a generation brought up to believe business people are serious and modelling that behaviour.

But business people aren’t serious. They’re often shallow and foolish. What they do may have serious consequences for others not for them

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Alastair Somerville @acuity.design · 16h

Asking supermarket staff if having a scanning device/heavy mobile phone strapped across wrist is comfortable. Obviously it’s not but it is convenient. Reminded of the Happiness equation that not everything is about joy but sometimes satisfaction at getting job done.

Alastair Somerville @acuity.design · 16h

As a generalist, I’m much more of a puddle: wide not deep

Alastair Somerville @acuity.design · 16h

Reminded of Industrial Revolution that living in cities, working in factories/offices, getting compulsory education was ruining people. They were physically weaker yet also more politically aware and less likely to comply.

Alastair Somerville @acuity.design · 16h

People are buried under explanations. What happened why, How to do it, etc. in so many formats.

Institutions think that they possess voice of historic authority to explain more/better. But, perhaps, they shouldn’t.

Perhaps hold that space for explaining to listen, to enable sharing.

Alastair Somerville @acuity.design · 17h

Listen to hear not explain

Pause

Explain to take responsibility not to evade or excuse

(Just out of meeting on very large infrastructure project building on top of previous schemes that left regrets and resentments)

Hand written note on cycle of listen and explanation

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Alastair Somerville @acuity.design · 17h

Start of every whodunnit, just ask who did it.

#Efficiency

lindsey adler @lindseyadler.bsky.social · 2d

...

Alastair Somerville @acuity.design · 19h

All political parties seem to hate the Knowledge Economy that is the consequence of deindustrialisation. The jobs are wrong. The education system is wrong. The requirement for more skilled people is wrong.

Nothing is right for Labour or Tories as they can’t stand the future they made.

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Alastair Somerville @acuity.design · 20h

Old post acuity-design.medium.com/if-everythin...

If everything is about Work then what is Life?

If everything is about Work then what is Life? Read for free https://acuity.design/if-everything-is-about-work-then-what-is-life/ I’ve helped to run a few amateur drama groups in different towns …

acuity-design.medium.com