Trust and Stewardship

"A Magna Carta for the Web" by Sir Tim Berners-Lee

As the builders and maintainers of services and sites that sometimes contain significant chunks of a user's life data, it's important to recognize our role in providing a safe and stable environment. We should strive to create sites that are welcoming and functional, as beautiful and intuitive as possible. But we should also focus on making systems and rules that support users at every step.

It's important as we develop new features and implement existing patterns to stop and consider what is best for the user. Is it ethical to break up a list of 10 items into 10 separate pages so you can maximize ad displays on your site? Or is it much better for the user to use a more convenient layout? Questioning decisions even at this low level is a critical way of double-checking our work at every step of the production process. What seems like a good idea in a discussion far removed from the website may, in fact, ruin the experience when implemented.

Everyone who plays a role on the production team must take their responsibility to users seriously and must recognize the need for consideration at every step.