HUMAN GRADE
Accordion
Trust yourself.
A simple, quiet way to organize and share your digital life with people you actually know. Folders hold photos, links, files and notes together. There is no feed and no algorithm, and people connect only by invite code.
About Human Grade
A standard made by the people who build the products
Human Grade was founded by Accordion Digital Inc. as a way for technology developers to work together and set shared standards for products that preserve human values.
Why we started it
Technology should serve life, not take its place
Most of the digital world is built to hold attention. Feeds are ranked to keep people scrolling, data is sold to advertisers, and more and more of what people see is shaped by machines rather than by the people they know.
As the internet fills with automated content, things made by people, chosen by people and shared between people become rarer and more valuable. Many people are now looking for technology that asks less of them and gives more back.
We build products for those people. Along the way we saw that one company can't change the industry on its own. A shared standard, kept in public by many developers, can.
What we mean by sustainability
Most talk of sustainable technology is about energy. Ours is about people.
A digital product is sustainable when people leave it more whole than they arrived. Their attention, trust, relationships and sense of self come through intact, and often stronger.
That is the whole idea behind the name. Human Grade products are made for people, not for the systems that keep them online.
The test: after an hour with the product, is your life fuller or emptier?
Who we are
Accordion Digital Inc.
Accordion Digital is the company behind Accordion and Meadow, the first two products built to the Human Grade standard. We wrote the charter from what we learned building them.
Meadow
Date with dignity
A curated, invitation-based private dating community. Friends vouch for each dater and make the introductions, and dates happen at partner restaurants in real places.
We hold our own products to every principle in the charter, and we publish the same yearly outcomes report we ask of every signatory.
What we do together
An open standard for any developer to join
Human Grade belongs to everyone who signs it. Accordion Digital started it, and each new signatory helps shape where it goes.
Set the standard
Five clear principles any product can meet: no algorithms deciding what people see, private data, no advertising, giving back, and yearly accountability.
Measure what matters
Shared real-life measures in place of screen time: time from opening the app to acting in real life, depth of trust, and return by choice.
Certify in public
Signatories display the Human Grade Digital badge, renewed each year with a published outcomes report.
Share what works
Signatories compare notes on building without feeds, ads or engagement tricks, so each new product starts further ahead.
Reach people in print
SLOW, a mailed mini magazine published as a co-op by signatories, reaches people who have stepped back from attention-driven technology.
Give back
Every signatory commits a share of revenue to charity, written into the business model from the start.
Who it's for
Built for builders, and for the people who use what they build
- Developers and founders who want to build products people are glad to come back to, and a public way to show it.
- Designers and product teams looking for a clear alternative to engagement metrics.
- Members and customers who want to know at a glance which products respect their time, trust and privacy.
- Partners, press and investors who want honest numbers about real-world outcomes.
Join us
Build something people are glad they used
If your product already lives by these principles, or you want it to, we'd like to hear from you.