< Articles />
Long-form writing by topic, newest first in each.
30 articles in 8 topics, across 8 pages.
Search
Matching articles from every page
Silent failures
What real systems owe the person using them
-
A Status Is Not Proof: The Laptop I Never Received, and the Job I Was Handed Anyway
A parcel I never received was recorded as collected, a return was set up in my name, and when the record turned out to be wrong, the cleanup was handed to me. Six points where it failed, and what would have worked.
-
When Is a System Not Fit for Purpose?
A system existing is not the same thing as a system working. On failure states, circular dependencies, observability, and what happens when the user becomes the error handling layer.
-
If GOV.UK Knows the Application Is Invalid, Why Did It Take My Payment?
I applied for a British passport on GOV.UK, answered "No" to a question that quietly made the application invalid, and was still walked to a non-refundable payment. A post-mortem on workflow validation, not a politics post.
-
Paving the wrong Path: What a Broken Government System Taught Me About Feedback Loops
Last year I was made redundant from an NHS role. Around the same time, the team I worked in got a "new system." Everything that used to live on paper — or, honestly, in something that behaved like a shared Excel sheet — was going digital.