How to use our resources

Edafe Onerhime
Data, Tech & Black Communities
5 min readFeb 5, 2021

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Discover our resources — illustration by https://www.blackillustrations.com

We know technology builds on existing biases, which means negative impacts build-up for UK Black communities. So how do we ‘build back better’ and ‘build back fairer’?

This guide helps you use the resources we’ve discovered and those shared with us. These resources are part of our contribution to support UK Black communities’ resilience — to resist and challenge negative consequences of data and technology.

You’ll find links to useful articles, papers, websites, and pictures.

Let’s get started

Our resources in Raindrop.io — A bookmark manager

We’ve chosen Raindrop to share our resources with you. Raindrop helps us share web pages, documents, and pictures. With this tool, you can look through the resources we’ve collected in a way that suits you and search to find relevant materials.

You can explore the bookmarks in Data, Tech & Black Communities right away or read below to see how we’ve organised the resources and how to search quickly.

How we organise

Technology impacts all aspects of Black lives. So how do you organise resources in a way that’s easy to find and makes sense to people outside the technology bubble?

We’ve chosen four key areas and added a category for other things that impact but don’t fall neatly into a category. You can find resources on:

  1. Crime and Justice
  2. Education
  3. Employment and Enterprise
  4. Health

Try each link to see what resources we’ve discovered or provided by others in Black communities. We’re just getting started, so do come back to see what new resources are available.

See the big picture

When it comes to browsing, you can choose the view that works best for you. At the top right of the screen are options that let you choose between views. You can choose between Grid, Headlines, Masonry, or List.

Here’s how the same resources look with different views:

Grid View

Grid View

Grid view shows you the most visual content, with the main picture, headline, and site logo. Depending on how long the headline is, you may also see our chosen tags.

Our resources in Grid View

Headlines View

Headlines View

Headlines view shows you the most content on the screen with the website logo, headline, and tags but no pictures.

Our resources in Headlines view

Masonry View

Masonry View

With Masonry view, you get optimised visual content, but instead of a grid as in the Grid view, articles are larger or smaller depending on their pictures and headlines. This irregular grid shows our chosen tags if the headline is short enough.

Our resources in Masonry View

List View

List View

List view gives you the best of both worlds — pictures appear as small cards, next to the website logo, headline, and a summary of what the resource is. Our chosen tags also appear.

Our resources in List View

The list view is our preferred way to view these resources. When you first open the resources website, this is the default view you’ll see. If you prefer one of the views above, you can select them at the screen’s top right.

All the views you can select in Raindrop.io

Look deeper, search in-depth

Browsing is a great way to discover resources. Sometimes you’re after something specific, which is where search and filter come in.

Filtering

You can filter the resources using our chosen tags. For example, if you click on the tag #AI (shown in yellow below), you’ll get all resources we’ve decided are about #AI.

A snapshot of our AI resources

Searching

If you need to search instead, the search bar at the top will help you find resources quickly. Raindrop.io will search headlines, tags, the summary, and inside the web site or document when you type in a word. Don’t be surprised if you get results where your word or words aren’t in the headline.

Searching in Raindrop.io

You can:

  1. Search for a single word, for example, school.
  2. Search for a phrase, for example, “maternity care”.
  3. Search for a tag, for example, #AI.
  4. Search for any of the above, then add more words, phrases, or tags, for example, #AI and race
Search results from our resources

Tell us what you think

We’re very excited to share and grow these resources with you. Do you have a burning question? Find out how to get in touch. Do you want to share your resources? You can do that too.

Get in touch

Contact us about this project, let us know what you think, who else we should speak to, and how we can make this a success.

Share what you know

Contribute to our shared, public bookmarks. We’d love your resources, examples of technology’s impact on Black lives, or links to other work in this area.

Acknowledgments

Illustrations from BlackIllustrations.com — Life is Good — Lifestyle Pack

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Edafe Onerhime
Data, Tech & Black Communities

Edafe Onerhime specialises in making impact with data. Her motto: Data + Design + Culture. She lives in Glasgow, Scotland with her wife and cat. She/Her.