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March 07 2012
1 day of Internet
Internet… that esoteric, futurist and amazing mesh of technology, content and things. THE thing that connects us all and it’s ever more pervasive and omnipresent in our lifes, we seem to not get enough of it… the proof? Something that stills keeps me amazed, by the sheer numbers of it, the information we produced on, say, 1 day of internet:
March 22 2011
5 yrs of Twitter
And although I can still remember people who said it would never catch up (and now they’re addicted to it!) the fact remains that twitter is still something unique as it was its first inception days, and it’s still my favourite tool to follow the people we care about 
.
If you haven’t yet, just join the crowd and follow me on Twitter: @pedrocustodio
January 07 2011
November 19 2010
20 Things I Learned about Browsers and the Web
For all the stuff you’ve always wandered about the web but were just afraid to ask, just click the image to enjoy the remarkably nicely illustrated book by Google Chrome Team with illustrations from Christopth Niemann:
November 11 2010
World Usability Day 2010
The day is almost over but I’ve hardly close to finish my post about this year’s topic – Communication, so instead I’d like to just share a very simple video introducing HCI to those who might not be so familiar with:
Why buttons go bad
If this got you curious and you still haven’t clicked away, follow along with to Dave Kelley on a tour on how much is actually in stake about human computer or human centered design:
October 26 2010
October 18 2010
January 13 2010
How much of your page goes unnoticed?
You’ll find a lot of literature and best practices when searching for answers on what goes beneath the fold of your website, so Google came to the rescue and just released the Google Browser Size, a visualization of browser window sizes for people who visit Google, which you can customize to see how does this measurements fit you own website, pretty much as I did for the above screenshot.
Thankfully I’m working on the redesign of my own website for a couple of days otherwise much of what goes in here would go unnoticed
November 20 2009
Why newspapers won’t die…
Today, I’ve picked this image on Igor’s Posterous:
first I smiled, but then it came to me, that although this is certainly true for many journals, the reality also reminds me that as everything else, it depends where you stand and on what you’re aware of…
The thing is that the NEW media loves to write about the OLD media, which in turn loves to write about NEW media, funny isn’t it?
I read most of my news online, but from time to time I do LOVE to read what I’ve been calling Slow News (and i’ll promise that I’ll cover this in my next post), meaning that I do read paper magazines and newspapers. I am in fact paying subscriptions for those when available (yes living in Germany has it’s drawbacks if we depend on international press).
So I take the opportunity to talk about two, relatively young projects on the newsstand that really make my days offline more richer.
First entry, Monocle, I’ve been reading Monocle since it’s first edition, it’s hard to grasp what captivated me from the very beginning. I do recall that it’s thickness, layout and typography was what probably made me buy it in the first place, but then I discovered inside something to calm my endless need to learn about new things that go on in common and not so common places in the world. Information that goes unnoticed, information that literally take you there and experience life in places where you haven’t been. Monocle introduced me to a whole new concept of generic magazines, it’s hard to archive it exactly here or there, I’ve read pretty much about everything in it, at sometimes it even feels like my how hitchhiker guide the planet.
Second entry, the portuguese journal ‘i’ (that although it’s in paper (AND WHICH I’D LOVE TO SUBSCRIBE <- HINT! HINT! If it was available outside of Portugal, I can only mainly read it online these days), but which I ask anyone coming back from Portugal to bring me copies for as many days as they can. Simply Called ‘i’ is already a reference newspaper in Portugal.It’s less than an year old, but has already been awarded as the “best designed newspaper of Spain and Portugal” (20.000-60.000 category) by a jury of the regional Chapter of the Society of News Design (SND-E). Suprised? Not really, people will always love to read newspapers (they just dislike the price/content balance). When I first read i, I noticed similar design decisions, a clear layout, clean, images taking over entire pages, a diferent paper, a compact size, and of course, a very well selected hand of news to fill in the gaps every day. If this doesn’t convince you that it’s possible to create new newspapers, than let the numbers decide for you, they’re selling around 16000 copies of it, on the same month that the top 2 national newspapers (Público & Diário de Notícias) sold between 30000-36000 copies. Martim Avillez Figueiredo gave recently an interview about the design award, that I consider is worth reading for anyone interested in the media/newspaper business.
Meaning that if you’re really aware of what your readers WANNA read and are willing to pay, you can probably live a bit longer! One very important note about this and of course other surviving giants of the OLD media is the fact that they all share a great online counterpart, meaning that they’ve been able make the transition and in this case align both side of the media experience as a whole!
Is Apple becoming the new Evil?
I just bought a new 27″ iMac a couple days ago. It’s fabulous. The screen’s too shiny, and the disk is surprisingly loud (…) So I bought it, but I bought it, for the first time, with misgivings. I felt the way I’d feel buying something made in a country with a bad human rights record. That was new. In the past when I bought things from Apple it was an unalloyed pleasure. Oh boy! They make such great stuff. This time it felt like a Faustian bargain. They make such great stuff, but they’re such assholes. Do I really want to support this company?
Sooner or later this had to happen, it’s striking the resemblance’s with the fact that we’re celebrating the 20th anniversary of the fall of wall in Germany. Apple has been building a walled garden with the iPhone/iTunes AppStore, but as any bridged wall, it will come down eventually, one thing it’s for certain it will fall by the hands of those that helped build it, it may take a while, but you can’t really ignore the signs..
Apple is great! I love it as I’m sure a whole lot more people does! But things aren’t looking good and it feels as if they’re becoming those that they used to criticizes in way more front’s that they should.. Apple needs to correct their path, otherwise in a decade or less, they might see themselves in a rather ackward position, if for now they still sell the best, shiniest and prettiest of them all…
Sounds a crazy idea? Read Paul Grahams latest essay about Apple and his commentary to the bashing on the broken app store approval process…
Google Chrome OS
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November 13 2009
November 12 2009
World Usability Day Charter
Today it’s the World Usability Day, this year’s theme is ‘Designing for a Sustainable World’, a theme that’s particular personal to me, not only refering to the usability factor, but also to this year’s topic! As founder of SHiFT – Social and Human Ideas for Tecnology, I personally recommend that all that agree with me that a lot need to be done to improve the way we experience and design technology to please read and sign the World Usability Day Charter:
Human error is a misnomer. Technology today is too hard to use. A cell phone should be as easy-to-use as a doorknob. In order to humanize a world that uses technology as an infrastructure for education, healthcare, government, communication, entertainment, work, and other areas, we must agree to develop technologies in a way that serves people first.
Technology should enhance our lives, not add to our stress or cause danger through poor design or poor quality. It is our duty to ensure that this technology is effective, efficient, satisfying and reliable, and that it is usable by all people. This is particularly important for people with disabilities, because technology can enhance their lives, letting them fully participate in work, social and civic experiences. Human error is a misnomer. Technology should be developed knowing that human beings have certain limitations. Human error will occur if technology is not both easy-to-use and easy-to-understand. We need to reduce human error that results from bad design. We believe a united, coordinated effort is needed to develop reliable, easy-to- use technology to serve people in all aspects of their lives, including education, health, government, privacy, communications, work and entertainment. We must put people at the center of design, beginning with their needs and wants, and resulting in technology that benefits all of us. Therefore, we, the undersigned, agree to work together to design technology that helps human beings truly realize their potential, so that we can create a better world for ourselves and future generations.
We agree to observe World Usability Day each year, to provide a single worldwide day of events around the world that brings together communities of professional, industrial, educational, citizen and governmental groups for our common objective: to ensure that technology helps people live to their full potential and helps create a better world for all citizens everywhere.
Article 1: Education
Wired and wireless schools are appearing everywhere. Students around the world benefit from low-cost, easy-to-use, reliable computing, Internet access, and telecommunication. Educational technology must be not only affordable and available, but must be usable by teachers, students and parents.
Article 2: Health
Healthcare must be available to everyone around the world. Medical technology can improve health, but it must be easy-to-use: error in this arena is costly. Because we are what we eat, we need healthier food supplies that will improve the well being of people everywhere. Technology that produces better food for all must be built on research that keeps the whole person in mind.
Article 3: Government
Governments around the globe seek to use new technology to better serve their citizens and increase participation in the civic experience. Citizens can pay taxes and take care of business online in many countries in the world; this same capability should be available to all, eliminating the digital divide that separates rich from poor or isolates social groups. Voting systems must ensure trust and confidence in elections. Technology that supports civic engagement must give all citizens equal access and opportunity, and must be easy to use and easy to understand by all citizens, including those with disabilities of any kind.
Article 4: Communication
People need to connect with each other. We have more means than ever to communicate: phones, Internet, messaging and the printed medium. Technology that facilitates communication between people must be intuitive to use. It should have instructions that are easy to understand, and knobs, dials and buttons that do not require constant tuning.
Article 5: Privacy and Security
As the use of technology grows, so do concerns about new forms of e-commerce, e-government and e-communication. We must build in appropriate safeguards to ensure that our interaction is secure, that children and others are protected, and that our systems are trustworthy.
Article 6: Entertainment
Entertainment is not just for our spare time. People use entertainment for many reasons throughout their daily lives. The world of entertainment has embraced technology to give us photos, movies, music and games in new ways and on new devices. But, even amusement benefits from usability! Incomprehensible remote controls, confusing instructions and blinking VCR clocks speak to the need for improvement in our media. Usable entertainment systems will make the experience less tiring and frustrating.
November 11 2009
Open Government Data Poster
Ton and James Burke created the Open Government Data Poster to help civil servants decide if and how it is ok to open up data sets they have available.
Also available in PDF (English) version.
Posted via email from pedrocustodio’s posterous
November 04 2009
Open Declaration on European Public Services
Endorse the Open Declaration!
Let’s improve European public services together.
On November 19th, the EU governments will meet in Malmo to sign a Ministerial Declaration that will define the key priorities for e-government strategy in Europe for the next years.
A group of Web 2.0 enthusiasts launched an open collaborative effort to build an Open Declaration on European Public Services, which calls on European governments to embrace the values of transparency, participation and empowerment and so improve public services. The European Commission and the Swedish Presidency of the EU have accepted that we present the declaration in the official program of the Ministerial Conference.
We now need to collect thousands of endorsements in order to convince governments to fully embrace these values.
If you share the values of the Open Declaration, please add your name in this form. Together we can make a difference!
If you agree, you may sign it and then join the Facebook Group to start spreading the word.
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