The Responsible Technology Toolkit
Build digital services that care about people, society and planet
Purchase this course for $299
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The growing responsible technology movement is creating tools, frameworks and principles that can help everyone build fairer digital services for people, society, and planet.
Over seven beginner-friendly chapters, we'll explore dozens of practical tools that you can use in your own work.
What you’ll learn
Explore the world of responsible technology and learn how to bring it to your work
Build responsibility into your process with Consequence Scanning
Center marginalised communities with the Design Justice principles
Embrace transparency and accountability with Data Sheets
How patterns can help you design more responsibly
Addressing privacy challenges with PETs
Video lessons – Practical, go-at-your-own pace learning
Access the community – Join our Discord and connect with thousands of SuperHi students and alumni
Continued help – Help from our expert teachers and educators with years of experience in the industry
Real world projects – Projects and code that you can alter and remix to add to your own sites and portfolio
Resources – Resources to get you started and going post-course
This learning experience is designed to help designers, developers and other makers integrate these ideas in their own process.
You need a computer (MacOS, Windows, or Linux) with the latest version of Chrome installed and a broadband internet connection. That’s it!
Want to try our teaching before signing up? Join our free 'Plan, Design + Code Your First Website' course!
Syllabus
Introducing the Responsible Technology Toolkit
This course explores the world of responsible technology. It’s a term that I’ll be using in a broad and inclusive sense, encompassing work in related fields such as ‘Design Justice’, ‘Trust and Safety’, and ‘AI Ethics’.
Wishful Worries vs. Genuine Harms
When we’re thinking about the potential harms of technology, it’s easy to get caught up in highly speculative ethical conversations. How will we avoid boredom when biotechnology allows us all to live longer? Will AI usher in an age of automation that necessitates a Universal Basic Income? What dilemmas will we face when people have access to brain-computer interfaces?
Build responsibility into your process with Consequence Scanning
Practitioners looking to bring responsible technology to their work often face a challenge: how can we persuade our colleagues, boss or client to prioritise responsibility? I believe that most people building technology want to do the right thing. However, it can be difficult to see how topics like ethics and responsibility fit into our existing processes. As fascinating as this work might be, it can feel like a distraction from the fast-paced work of designing and shipping software.
Center marginalised communities with the Design Justice principles
The Design Justice Principles outline a way of designing that considers equity, diversity, inclusion and social justice. It takes inspiration from sociological paradigms like the Matrix of Domination (Patricia Hill Collins). Practitioners of Design Justice adopt a community-led approach and focus on the ways in which design can reinforce or challenge all forms of structural inequality.
Embrace transparency and accountability with Data Sheets
Data lies at the heart of almost all of our digital experiences. It's also a key area where things can start to go wrong. Data about people can cause harm in many ways, with outcomes ranging from biased machine-learning algorithms to breaches of privacy.
How patterns can help you design more responsibly
Patterns are general and reusable solutions to commonly occurring problems. We use patterns all the time when we make technology. For example when we implement solutions found in a design system or a software library.
Addressing privacy challenges with PETs
Privacy is a hugely important topic in the world of Responsible Technology because it lies at the heart of so many digital harms. In this chapter, I’ll share some models that we help you navigate the complex world of privacy.
Your instructors
Our instructors have decades of professional experience, have spoken at international conferences and have won countless web design awards.
John Ridpath
John works in Responsible Technology, Data Education and Learning Experience Design. He loves empowering people to explore the relationship between technology and human values.
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