Stephen McCarthy
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loft27design.bsky.social
Stephen McCarthy
@loft27design.bsky.social
Head of Product Design and User Research at Which?
Reposted by Stephen McCarthy
Last night just after midnight ET, me and my colleagues at 18F were told our office had been "deleted". All 90+ technologists are out of the civil service.
March 1, 2025 at 6:39 PM
Reposted by Stephen McCarthy
🦊

Friday was my last day working at 18F. It was a team of extraordinary people, but a few things happened that made me realize I had to leave.

Everything happens so much these days, so I thought I’d write down for myself what happened, and how I made my decision:

ethanmarcotte.com/wrote/leavin...
Moving on from 18F. — ethanmarcotte.com
I had a wonderful job, until I didn’t. This is about what happened—and what is happening.
ethanmarcotte.com
February 18, 2025 at 6:43 PM
Reposted by Stephen McCarthy
Want cheaper car insurance? Support lower urban speed limits. That's the lesson from Britain: www.theguardian.com/money/2025/j...
UK’s 20mph speed limits ‘are cutting car insurance costs’
Controversial safety policy has helped drive down premiums to 18-month low, says Confused.com
www.theguardian.com
January 22, 2025 at 6:55 PM
Reposted by Stephen McCarthy
(If you build a football stadium you have private security and you contribute to local govt for policing and you obey court orders to provide access to CCTV etc)
January 8, 2025 at 4:27 PM
Reposted by Stephen McCarthy
Dublin has reduced car capacity in its urban core, and got cars out of the way of buses on the main east-west bus axis. Buses are faster, more people are riding, businesses will be fine.

www.rte.ie/news/dublin/...
Car use on Dublin quays plummets with new traffic plan
Private car use in Dublin city centre has dropped significantly and public transport journey times have reduced along the quays since the Dublin City Transport Plan came into force last month.
www.rte.ie
September 27, 2024 at 3:23 PM
Saw a ‘Design for Good’ conference advertised the other day - thought ‘Oh that looks interesting’. Then saw the main contributors where BP and Nestlé - 🧐🤨
February 5, 2024 at 9:12 AM
Royal Mail are hiring a ‘Head of UX, SEO and Analytics’. The salary is £55k. You read that correct. Good luck to them 🤨
December 20, 2023 at 10:29 AM
Get live updates on 'real' deals happening this Black Friday. All these deals are on products we've tested and consider to be genuinely good value! www.which.co.uk/news-live/bl... Don’t buy crap - buy sustainably!
November 24, 2023 at 9:45 AM
Season 16, Episode 8 of Its Always Sunny — good advert for Service Design.
November 14, 2023 at 10:03 PM
Do you ever get home from work and say to yourself – "God, I spoke an awful lot of shite today didn't I"
November 8, 2023 at 9:20 AM
Reposted by Stephen McCarthy
I know alt text posts are over done, so I’ve been sat on this one for a while. But even in 2023 I keep seeing the same mistakes being made, so I figured it can't do any harm to hit publish!

So, here is my take on alt text if it's useful: www.craigabbott.co.uk/blog/how-to-...
How to write good alt text for screen readers
What is alt text? Why it matters. And, how to avoid common mistakes.
www.craigabbott.co.uk
November 3, 2023 at 7:30 AM
New blog post — Improving how we approach user research and experimentation across our product squads … medium.com/which-produc...
November 6, 2023 at 4:33 PM