Usability insights

Por mais afrontante que isto pudesse parecer resolvi escrever esse texto.

Sou contra a chamada "cultura" indígena, completamente. Afinal, no que as pessoas pensam quando dizem que querem proteger a cultura indígena? O que ela trás de bom para a sociedade e para nosso mundo em geral?

Estamos falando de costumes que privam os nativos de praticamente todos os seus direitos e liberdade de pensamento!

Os índios fazem maus extremos aos seus filhos ao forçar sua "cultura" neles. Estamos falando de pessoas que poderiam demonstrar talentos incríveis se tivessem a possibilidade de estudar, porém têm seus sonhos impedidos de brotar pelas limitações definidas pela vida na tribo. Permanecem vivendo no mato, separados do resto da sociedade, quando poderiam ter desejos para suas vidas, para se tornar alguém que ficaria satisfeito e feliz de ser. A sociedade está condenada a não ter um médico, um comerciante, um artista plástico ou qualquer profissão que você puder imaginar, porque a pessoa nasceu numa oca e não teve escolha a partir daí...

O que mais podemos lembrar ao pensar em cultura indígena?
As mulheres são tratadas como inferiores e objetos do homem, jovens e velhos são submetidos a diversos rituais dolorosos, indivíduos são mortos por motivos idiotas (bebês gêmeos, etc), punições para crimes diferenciadas, animais são mortos da pior maneira para alimentação, a religião não trás nenhum benefício, a política é hereditária e autoritária, o idioma é arcaico e não serve pra nada preservá-lo e a falta de informação causa doenças para essas pessoas. Quantos mais exemplos preciso dar?

Em nenhum momento concordo com ações que têm como consequência a morte de índios ou a destruição de florestas, mas não me importo com qualquer coisa que apenas extermine a cultura indígena. Eu imploro que façam exatamente isso, e que os leitores deste texto a partir de agora concordem comigo, por favor exterminem a cultura indígena e essa ideia de preservá-la!

Since the announcement of Windows 8 there has been a great talk about the new features and usability paradigm users are being presented to. The changes are so big that enthusiasts define: or it's going to be a big success or fail miserably.

Many people criticized the system asking how Microsoft plan to put a OS coming from mobiles into desktops and succeed. In my opinion it turns out they might be able to do exactly that, by perfecting current mobile world characteristics and strategies they can become even tougher.

"Hit or miss"

One of the complaints about Windows 8 is the use of the hidden corners of the screen to perform some actions. Actually we've been quite using this feature already in our everyday use, yes on Windows 7, we just haven't noticed yet.
After this issue came to my attention I noticed the corners of the screen are already the hot spots for task switching and menus since a very long time. Let's take a look at Windows 7: at the upper left we have the menus (be it ribbon or classic), at upper right the close button and its siblings, bottom left the start menu and pinned apps (previously the quick launch bar was here) and at the bottom right the show desktop shortcut.

Microsoft managed to notice this and improve the idea into what Windows 8 offers now, and this fact already changed the way I use Windows 7. I didn't know before, but you can hit on the extremes of the screen to quickly perform actions like closing the window, opening the app menu, to get to your desktop or the start menu, you can make your mouse "fly" to the corners of the screen and click without having to aim. These highly common tasks on everyone's daily work are made even easier with Windows 8 and don't even waste screen space.

That used to be an argument on how mouse users would be affected, when in reality they get to know a faster workspace. Actually I think moving my finger to corners of a tablet is a more cumbersome experience...

Double the audience

The size of elements and fonts which are bigger and optimized for touch will only make it easier to see and click whatever be the input method. The fonts will increase the audience of the system to people with impaired sight, offering greater accessibility and at the same time not harming the general user experience. For example, having words in a big font but cut to fit as titles you swipe left or right to access on Windows Phones haven't confused people at all, you can still easily read which word is that even incomplete and it made the interface clear. It also means Windows 8 will be ready to anything from small devices to big monitors, widening the use applications of the operating system. I believe the visualization is improved in panels, and we can think of more use cases specially with the Metro-style apps.

When Microsoft first "Surface" project was shown there were many examples of use in places like hotels and cloth shops. Windows 8 somewhat accomplishes implementing the greater interaction of Surface on Windows, merging the project into the main product. This resulted into something unique!

Let changes flow in

One of the main advantages they can bring from the current mobile ecosystems is the incremental update smartphones receive over time. If they do it right they can refine the OS based on users' feedback and polish the features. The little details in functionality they can change with system updates and better implementations of the apps that can now get updates via an app store is something that pleases me very much.

It isn't very certain that Microsoft will do this, as they usually will set the way the OS will work on its roots and will never update it (until the next major version), but the chance they can think about launching new versions like "Windows 8.5" paired with Windows Phones updates is the most exciting thought I have about it, and we can see Windows in a brighter view.


Doesn't matter what you think of it, "Aero" features implementation slightly, but effectively, set a new way of using computers, a simpler way, and now the Metro UI is perhaps the most innovative software iteration to surface on mainstream in years. Honestly Linux distributions has been playing catching up by mimicking Windows features and never setting any new interesting paradigms despite all the freedom to do so... I can only say it's going to be fun to watch what they'll mimic from Windows 8.

Versão em português1. Take control of your things: you choose what's on your main page, Speed Dial, not a crazy most-visited-recently-visited-pin-before-it-goes-away-hide-before-someone-sees-it algorithm. Choose how many sites you want to add from 0 to ∞ in a customizable look. Manage the search engines of YOUR browser.

2. Please your inner geek: use unique keyboard and mouse shortcuts to browse the web like a pro. Fully customizable!

3. Have your content anywhere: Opera pioneered browser synchronization technology with Opera Link. With it you can have all your bookmarks, notes, and other stuff anywhere! Between computers or your phone, or even without Opera: you can access your data via the web interface.

4. Speed: Opera is aways improving its rendering engines for maximizing the speed of the browser; and with Opera Mini or Turbo, services that compress websites' data in servers to deliver the content in smaller size to you, you'll be able to browse the web considerably better in a slow connection.

5. Save money: browse faster and wasting less, because receiving compressed data (smaller content) means you consume less data from your connection data plan. And easily disable image downloading completely if you will.

6. Battery life: yes, one more benefit from Opera technology, because Opera Mini's rendering engine is more simplified, it will spend less battery from your phone as a result. Tests also show Opera performs great on the energy usage of desktops and notebooks.

7. Eye-candy: it's a browser with a beautiful sleek interface, and you may like a lot the recently introduced themes. You can also arrange anything to suit your needs.

8. Tab management is a breeze with tab-stacking, the windows panel, MDI and sessions. Aways choose whether a page will open in the background or foreground with shortcuts.

9. Support open web standards: Opera Software is a company which is aways supporting the latest web standards and only them, they don't implement proprietary technologies which affect websites' functionality, they're aways collaborating on standards organizations like W3C and WHATWG to push new technologies for everyone. They don't harm the web.

10. It's free: give it a try and you'll never look back.

More information and download at opera.com

Agora que a atualização para o WLM 2011 no Windows Vista e 7 é obrigatória para poder utilizar o serviço, achei interessante postar minha visão do aplicativo desde que foi lançado. É claro que há várias melhorias como o novo painel de atualizações dos seus amigos e conversação por guias nativa, mas não vale a pena.

Infelizmente houve apenas uma atualização desde então, e não resolveu nenhum dos problemas que nós como usuários agora temos que enfrentar.

Minha lista, intacta:

• Não dá para salvar o nome de usuário sem salvar a senha também no login (péssimo para computadores compartilhados).
• Você praticamente não pode personalizar o nick (pois ele altera o seu nome no Windows Live). O subnick morreu.
• Não roda no Windows XP.
• Só dá pra acessar todas as funções do menu usando o Alt pra exibi-lo (se você não quer deixar um menu que estraga o visual visível o tempo todo - e usuários finais comuns não sabem fazer isso).
• Os contatos ficam espalhados em colunas ao invés de ficarem em uma lista única (mais difícil de acompanhar a ordem alfabética).
• Atualizando da versão antiga dá um rolo em quem está bloqueado ou não por causa do novo conceito de "Invisível para".

É impressionante que mesmo com comentários de usuários dizendo como acharam a nova versão horrível por toda a internet (mais pelo choque do visual remodelado, mas ainda assim as críticas são válidas), além de poder observar todos os familiares pedindo pra que eu revertesse para a versão anterior, nada mudou em quase 2 anos do lançamento inicial. Não acredito que houve uma pesquisa de usabilidade no desenvolvimento deste software de forma alguma.

O que será que a Microsoft vai fazer com o Microsoft Messaging do Windows 8? Tenho esperança, mas prefiro nem pensar... Mas tudo bem, porque as pessoas vão acabar usando cada vez menos este comunicador. Todos estamos muito felizes com o chat próprio do Facebook, que roda direto do site e que pode desbancar o Skype assim que as pessoas se tocarem que tem até chamada por vídeo (e a Facebook quiser agarrar a oportunidade de dominar mais este mercado e parar de tratar a Microsoft como "café com leite"), e eu continuo usando o completíssimo Trillian no desktop e no smartphone.


Versão crua originalmente postada no ex-fórum do Tecnoblog:
Contras do Windows Live Messenger 2011 « Fórum Tecnoblog no cache do Bing.

Yes I can criticize Opera too, when they deserve it.

Actually I took a long time to put this post out, as the things I'll talk about have happened some weeks ago. Going direct to the point: Opera is censoring bad comments about it on the Desktop Team blog.

Address field search suggestions in private tabs
My comments about the address field's search suggestions being disabled on the private browsing mode got deleted. Actually not completely... All the discussion I had with Rijk is there except my last comment where I showed him how the decision actually was counter what themselves have defined as the private browsing purpose. I tried reformulating my comment and posting it again numerous times (about three) but noticed all of them got deleted and in the end it seemed like I was wrong!!

I'll post the whole thing here and if my blog post here get deleted (as it seems they can do it by whatever reason in the My Opera terms), well Opera, I'll have to repost it in 10 different Websites on the Web because this is the way the Web works... And it'll get very bad for you. It doesn't means if no one sees this post or comment anymore, I just want my space to say what I mean now and you'll have to accept it!! I want to say "I was there" at least.

The full conversation (special guests by koimark and Slamdex):

"No search suggestions in private tabs" in the changelog of a new build...

Me: Why??? Are you guys at Opera Software confusing features' objectives? Private tabs is for not storing private data (history, cookies, cache, etc) not for being an "do not track me Google, 'I'll encrypt my connection and use a proxy and I like my privacy' freak" mode. It's like the same thing you've done to Pin Tab!

Rijk: I don't think everyone will be comfortable with text typed in private tabs going to Google automatically, even if they are generally OK with search suggestions.

Me: You're still confusing the feature purpose...
Private tabs are meant to be private on your computer by not storing data (so other people with access to it won't see what you've done), they're not meant to be an anonymous way (in "privacy against companies that track you" terms) to surf the Web!
The change made on this build makes searching on private tabs more difficult.

koimark: Funny. You told the Opera guys what the certain feature is or should be. I think Opera's way is logical way but of course that's my opinion.

Rijk: You've defined the purpose for yourself quite strictly, but that might not be what others expect from the feature. Also, you can still get search suggestions of course even in private windows, just like you can get them in Opera 11.5.

My first attempt to give the definitive answer was here, it got deleted without any notice.

Chris (Slamdex): Who are you to tell Opera what Opera is?

This, now koimark and Chris (Slamdex) thinks I'm completely wrong.

Here is my answer that was deleted:
(I'm actually redoing it now from scratch one more time since I hadn't save it anywhere, I didn't think that would have happened.)

I'm not defining what the private browsing feature is or not. It's already defined. Look at Wikipedia's article definition:

"Privacy mode, sometimes informally referred to as "porn mode", or "private browsing" is a term that refers to privacy features in some web browsers. Historically speaking, web browsers store information such as browsing history, images, videos and text within cache. In contrast, privacy mode can be enabled so that the browser does not store this information for selected browsing sessions. This allows a person to browse the Web without storing local data that could be retrieved at a later date. It is of note that this offers virtually no privacy protection beyond the local level. For example, it is still possible to identify frequented websites by associating the IP address with the user on the server end."

Now look at how Opera, themselves, define it!

"You can open a new Private tab or Private window that forgets everything that happened on it once closed." http://labs.opera.com/news/2009/12/22/

"Christmas time is near, you might want to go online to buy a few gifts for your loved ones without them noticing which sites you went to." http://my.opera.com/ODIN/blog/opera-10-5-pre-alpha-build-released-here-is-whats-new

"Keep your browsing private
Using a private tab or window ensures that evidence of your browsing history is removed as soon as the tab or window is closed. Now, it is safer to do your banking from a public computer or easier to plan that surprise vacation." http://www.opera.com/browser/features/

The removal of search suggestions from private tabs now looks completely nonsense and just make it harder to use it in the examples yourselves gave: search for gifts, hotels, flights, etc, now without suggestions.

My original comment finishes some part on the next paragraph.

The feature wasn't intended to increase privacy in any way, and it doesn't (the IP address is still accessible, etc). I'm not defining what the feature is. I'm just the guy who have read and repeated exactly what Opera Software said before. I know, features can evolve, they can change and even have identical names in two browsers and act differently, but mixing up user's Web privacy and user-to-another-user privacy in one feature is obviously misleading and this definitely isn't a case of what a user expects, this is a case where the change decreases the practicality of the feature.

Anyway, it's not THAT big deal because you can still use keywords to get the suggestions on the address field. The thing was my comments were completely censored when I get to the point to show that even them "agree" with me! But okay..., those Norwegians... lol

But them I witness a second censorship!
Luchio: Woah the whole discussion about "icons missing in address bar dropdown" regression just got moderated out, without any explanation. I don't believe it breached any term of use nor breached to request to keep the discussion focused on what would be required for a final release. It is a major UI functionality regression, whether you like it or not... You can ignore it, that's always your decision..."

Thanks for noticing this Luchio. It turns out they deleted all the comments on the Tunny Beta post that were showing support for a rollback on the previous iteration of the address field URL drop-down auto-complete list or improvements that would make it more usable like it was before.

There was also another case of posts being deleted on discussing the HTML formating on some parts of My Opera.

Were my comments on the first case any way off-topic (certainly not, as the changes happened on the build I was commenting). Did they infringed the terms? (I'm sure not.) Why no "Mod edit" pointing the reason, or a PM? Who deleted my comments?

It's censorship, and it must stop.

Update: It has just happened again!