Charlotte Webb

Charlotte Webb

I am co-founder of Feminist Internet, a non-profit that aims to make the Internet more equal by combining feminism, technology, art and design.

Location London

Activity

  • Hey Maria - thanks for sharing and well done for sticking with it!

  • Hi Wyn - I totally relate to that - it's been a strange time of foggy brain for me too...

  • Hi Shanti - thanks very much for this comment, and I am sorry you felt uncomfortable watching the video. We really appreciate these critiques, as they are such a vital part of feminism in action. We're going to re-write this step for the next run of the course (starting Monday) - we will remove the current video and explain how the comments here prompted us to...

  • Hi Elizabeth - thanks for this! I agree that more global perspectives are needed. I really appreciate you raising the issue of colonialism here as well, as it's such an important intersection. We're going to re-write this step for the next run of the course (starting Monday) - we will remove the current video and explain how the comments here prompted us to...

  • Hi Sinead - thank you for raising these important points - I hadn't realised the ways in which religious discrimination played a role here, and I completely agree that this should be clarified. We're going to re-write this step for the next run of the course (starting Monday) - we will remove the current video and explain how the comments here prompted us to...

  • Hi Barbara - thanks so much for your comment, and I agree that more global and decolonised perspectives are needed here. I think you're also totally right that women who haven't been recognised by institutions should be highlighted. We're going to re-write this step for the next run of the course (starting Monday) - we will remove the video and explain how the...

  • yes - it will still be available :)

  • @DonnaR thank you for sharing and well done for sticking with it - amazing!

  • Totally! It can absolutely be frustrating if a bot gives you a button when you want to say something else, but equally the limitations of this method can be really inspiring too :)

  • @PetraWolf I'd say 3 - 5 buttons is good. I've seen chatbots that provide about 12 buttons with just an emoji on each, but it can get quite overwhelming!

  • Thanks very much for this reflection, and a sensitive consideration of female photographers. From a feminist perspective, it's important to raise the profiles of those who are underrepresented, so for me, pointing out that women are a minority and featuring them is a positive step. It's good not to speak on behalf of people, but it's also good to be an ally...

  • Really good question re: emojis and screen readers - would be good to ask Alex about that in the coding steps. I found this in case it's helpful: https://tink.uk/accessible-emoji/

  • This is great - you've done a lot of work! One thing I'd say is to make sure there's a balance between how much the bot is saying and how much the person is clicking. Colouring the bubbles one colour for the person and another for the bot can give you a quick sense of that...

  • Hmm - I still can't view it either - would you mind re-posting the link here?

  • This is a great start - thanks for sharing. A couple of thoughts: it's really good to share links, but one thing to consider is how to keep the person engaging with the chatbot, and what happens once they've visited another website. You could consider paraphrasing or quoting some info from the resources before/instead of/as well as always giving links.

    The...

  • I couldn't read everything because it's a little blurred - but it looks good! I like that you've mapped out one pathway - you can always add other branches later :)

  • It's so hard - but well done for doing it:) Good idea to stick with one branch and get that completed

  • This makes me think about Siri's response to the question 'are you a woman?' - 'I am genderless like cacti and certain species of fish'...

  • Love this - it would be good if, down the line, big corporates would use Anansi too ;)

  • Great padlet, full of research - thanks for sharing :)

  • A feminist test on communications campaigns would be a great contribution to the world! I get so angry at sexist messaging! Love the gif too :)

  • Me too - Oraclebot is a techno-witch of the best kind!

  • Wow, loved how you mocked up the screen interfaces and created such an empathetic and sensitive storyboard. Fantastic.

  • Thanks for sharing - it made me think the martial arts providers should be on board!

  • I would love to see this become a reality - can't wait to interact with the final chatbot :)

  • @KatherineLu Absolutely love this - am looking forward to seeing the final chatbot :)

  • Thanks for sharing! So, are you imagining this will almost be like a quiz, where the chatbot gives different possible ways to react in a given situation?

  • Thanks for sharing Daniel - just one thing to bear in mind - for the chatbot you'll make on this course people won't be able to type...

  • I wondered about whether 'sister' would be a bit too familiar as well - but let's take another look after you've worked on it a bit more!

    One small thing - the bot you'll code on the course won't have any voice recognition functionality, so people wouldn't be able to say something to it - they could only type :)

  • Oraklebot for witches - so, so cool

  • Love the ending where the peaceful afternoon is restored!

  • Love the visuals in this - and 'that's because you're boring and only listen to male artists' made me giggle :)

  • It's really hard, yes! Stay with it though :)

  • If the bot had some AI capability it would be, but this is a rule based bot :)

  • Thank you to everyone for sharing - the contributions are so impressive and thoughtful! This is really what the course is about :)

  • Thanks for sharing :) It might be worth considering whether parents will need to grant access to the chatbot?

  • This is great, thank you for sharing! Your experience as a parent is really important here I think - as children will most likely access the service through a parent or caregiver?

  • Hi Laura - I thought this was really sensitive and insightful. Your work on the helpline has given a lot of insights that will be invaluable :)

  • Great you're planning to do testing!

  • Hey Christina - you may have already chosen which to go for by now, and I think they're all interesting, but I was actually drawn to the artists' one, because you said there was a strong community you could talk to about it, which is an advantage. It's also a very clear idea, and quite practical - I can see a chatbot being able to help with the problem. For me...

  • @TemiLA I thought the barriers you identified were very insightful, and related to your comment about caregivers, who might need to be a little bit involved if they're the gatekeepers of technologies the children can access?

  • Your Padlet also made me think that a chatbot for people that don't have Parkinsons would also be helpful! I.e. to help break down the stigma...

  • @RebeccaEdwards It's brilliant you can talk to your mum about it and that she thinks it would help. Are there any cases where physical mobility might stop someone interacting with a device (and therefore the chatbot)?

  • Hey Katharine thanks for sharing this - the statement "I don't think a chatbot would be helpful in this particular case because it's user to user based communication and not user to company." was really interesting - was that from someone you spoke to?

  • The fact that you are sensitive to the need to explore the meaning of the menopause, not just its physical effects is a great strength.

  • Excellent question, and much needed in my view! I think anything that can help people navigate this very opaque field is worth trying!

  • Hey Hannah - the thing that was fascinating for me about this was the strengths you wrote about, and it made me wonder how you could leverage this in the chatbot design. If there's anyway you can narrow the group, it'd be helpful too - as you say, it's still quite broad.

  • Brilliant - this is exactly the point of this stage, to refine and design with a bit more specificity :)

  • Hey Victoria - this is great! I think narrowing to a location is smart - you'll be able to attend to local needs more thoroughly, and then scale later. Fab.

  • Hey Megan - amazingly thorough, and very interesting about how the different levels of caution seemed to correspond with age. Really thoughtful work - thanks for sharing :)

  • Hey Elke, great stuff - thanks for sharing! I think it might be helpful to clarify the change process/digitization part - maybe you could design your script around a particular change, based on a case study or something you've experienced in this context, for example?

  • "Elderly people have meaningful and beautiful sex lives!" YES! I think your questions about whether it will be used in groups and/or with a facilitator are very interesting. Down the line it'd be fascinating to imagine how that might work.

  • Jane this is great - it looks like this process helped understand needs. With the tech literacy question you'd probably need a bigger sample, and if everyone said they'd be put off, you might have to go back to the drawing board. But for now you can take it on board in terms of planning a very simple interface, and having the chatbot give clear instructions...

  • so interesting - have never heard of a chatbot for this before! Good luck with the next phase :)

  • fantastic - very impressed with the survey - great call :)

  • And completely agree with your second point - it's not good if opinions are gathered and then ignored.

  • I agree - if stakeholders are really included and listened to, the process/idea might have to go back to the drawing board at a stage that's very uncomfortable in some circumstances...

  • Hey Darja thanks for the question. At this stage you can be fairly general, and then hone down in the next steps...but you're right to identify the multiplicity of any group. Does that help?

  • @IsabelAlbiol thanks for this - ha ha it's great when you just write and the words flow sometimes! This really made me think about assumptions about how other people feel based on our own feelings ('I feel mistrustful, surely others feel the same?') - because by testing these assumptions with others, you might actually build community and connection...

  • @JemimaCollins Definitely - very hard to confront sometimes, but worth it, I think.

  • @JaniceSmith great stuff - discovering we were wrong about groups can be very constructive :)

  • Good observation about how much diversity there can be even within one community :)

  • Totally agree

  • Hey Elke thanks for this. I think if you have worked with a group of refugees and researched this area already you're in a good position to develop something out of your current understandings along with further stakeholder research :)

  • I agree - I thought this was an excellent argument, and something that you could almost write into the chatbot's script - i.e. state some information early on about how this is not only something experienced by women, but that they are disproportionately affected.

  • Fascinating question! I can imagine the chatbot having a section at the beginning that explains whatever term you choose to go with, whether it's 'unbiased', 'accessible', 'inclusive' or something else. I wonder if there's anything in the field of non-violent communication that could be of help?

  • Interesting! Are you imagining that the stakeholder group is people over 60 or employers?

  • I think both sound extremely valuable - have you decided what to focus on? In the longer term, it could be a surveillance focused chatbot that has pathways about both devices and public spaces...but maybe pick one thing for now!?

  • Sounds very interesting! Do you have an idea of which kinds of technologies you want to focus on? It be useful to pick one or 2 while you build your prototype...

  • Thanks Janice - the specificity of the stakeholder group is great. I can imagine this is something that could be designed for a very specific group, but ending up helping others as well :)

  • That's intriguing! I tend to think of chatbot interactions as quite "1 to 1", so I'd love to hear how you're envisaging this community creation aspect :)

  • All sound very rich - though I agree that with the first idea, you may need to narrow the stakeholder group. Have you arrived at a decision yet? <3

  • LOVE the specificity of this - and very helpful that you have access to the stakeholder group - great stuff!

  • @JaneNorris Thanks for sharing that - you're certainly not alone in feeling Covid exhaustion <3 I hope things are OK.

    Love this idea! I think it's strong on several counts - first it's an idea that comes from your own direct experience and the sense that this could be helpful. Also, fact that you phone a friend to suggest meals is awesome - maybe this...

  • @JemimaCollins @LouisaDymond great conversation! It's pretty cool to have support for a project before you even set out to do stakeholder research :)

  • @LouisaDymond Such an interesting idea - would be very intrigued to hear what the stakeholder group makes of it!

  • Great! - It's helpful that it's about a charity you already know, so you have access to the community for stakeholder research, and know what resources the chatbot can flag :)

  • Woah - good list! Have you narrowed it down at all? Would love to know what you finish up with :)

  • hey Jemima - firstly, very glad the comments have helped!

    I think that's a well focused brief - and good that it comes from your own experience, so you can draw on that as well as desk research and stakeholder research through the rest of the process.

  • OMG Yes - this is an unexpected combination, but fascinating. I like the idea that it could break down some stereotypes about who 'deserves' sex and at what age, or assumptions about when people stop wanting sex...

  • @elkew this one is intriguing, because it implies that there is a specific kind of anxiety civil servants might have, that's context specific. Could be super interesting! (I like your other idea too)

  • You might want to check out some of the outcomes of our chatbot workshop that focused on this issue :) https://medium.com/@enquiries_65470/designing-feminist-chatbots-to-tackle-online-abuse-cadd3e9c66f

    The outcomes were really inspiring!

  • Hey Devin, can you be any more specific? Are you thinking about career choices, for example, or how to be resilient, how to plan your finances...

  • Really interesting. Although it's a chatbot, I wonder if you're thinking about narrowing your stakeholder group by location initially? I can imagine trying to connect people with local food banks, community food projects etc?

  • I can imagine a conversational interface could be really helpful in this situation - it will be interesting to see if teens agree, and what kind of chatbot they'd like to interact with!

  • Hey Sarah - really like how this avoids positioning people with Autism as 'the problem', and looks at how others can help :)

  • @GwenB OMG no - I hadn't heard of that - thank you for sharing...

  • @AntoniaBustamante such a good point. I'll discuss with Josie whether we should modify the phrasing - thanks!

  • I guess it made me wonder about a chatbot that looks at complex words/terms and expands on them in a way that shows how alive language can be - how certain words mean different things in different contexts, for example. I mean 'feminism' as a word is the perfect example in a way, because of how many meanings it has...

    So, a kind of feminist...

  • @JiayingSim OMG I love this idea - can't wait to see how it evolves! Thank you for the feedback as well :)

  • Charlotte Webb replied to [Learner left FutureLearn]

    Yes! There's a free version which is all you'll need for this course. You can subscribe to unlock more features, but that's not necessary here :)

  • Great! You might be interested in Muneera's question too: 'How could a chatbot help single parents deal with the pressures of raising a kid/kids on their own.'

  • I like that this is focused on support services. Do you think you could be any more specific about the target group?

  • Very interesting! Are you leaning towards one of these more than the other? Can you clarify what you mean by self-expression?

  • Love the clarity of this <3

  • Wow this is super ambitious! It's so interesting because the line between misinformation/disinformation/fake news and conspiracy theory is so blurred. There's an interesting Science Weekly podcast on the psychology of conspiracy theory here: https://www.theguardian.com/science/audio/2020/may/05/covid-19-the-psychology-of-conspiracy-theories

    Do you have any...

  • Love the specificity of this. Very interesting to consider how different country contexts might impact the language of the chatbot...

  • Wow - good options! I guess the second would require more qualitative research and engagement with your stakeholders, to see whether they felt like a chatbot could help with loneliness, as well as what loneliness is like for them, when it is worst, what helps, etc...are there any other chatbots for this group you have come across? Do you have access to any...

  • Me too - it's much more human and carries a sense of care when phrased this way