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1 comment March 30th, 2008

Torino Colors

This image and the idea behind it, it’s simply AMAZING! Just read along and tell me if you don’t agree!

The Torino Colors project aims to change the way we navigate a city, the image i’ve reproduced here is the colored map for the Torino city in Italy. The idea behind it is very simple:

STEP 1: pick a color for each region of your town.
STEP 2: paint all the city appliances and structures (like trash bins, light posts, sign holders, etc.) with the corresponding color…

With a little twist and it’s here that this idea really get interesting!

STEP 3: As soon as you start moving in any direction, you add some blending to starting color, or simply put, when you walk in any certain direction towards another part of the city, the color will react to your movement and start to blend with the color selected for the region where you’re headed.

This way you can always know where you’re headed!
Pure genius hein?

If you’d like to know a bit more, and can read italian I strongly suggest that you check their site. In particular have a look at the official press-release and the Google Earth KML file

Add comment March 28th, 2008

I am Singularity

Singularity 2008 will gather more than 100 of the world’s top web visionaries, developers, designers, thought leaders, and celebrities on what will be the very first large-scale online web conference in the world!

Singularity is an amazing idea by Aral Balkan, which many of us know from his open-source project SWX and other amazing works as Flash developer.

The idea is all about active networking and knowledge sharing, but one of Aral intentions will probably really make the difference! Aral wants to engage local groups to setup little singularities happening everywhere around the world at the same time and in parallel with the online event!

I’m so sold out to the idea that I’ve joined the speakers ranks and will be giving a presentation on my Community Design Patterns project:

You can keep an eye out for Singularity Blog or simply by joining the ranks at it’s Upcomming Group.

As a side note, just two very quick and interesting aspects of Singularity: 1) it will represent a screenshot of the Web in 2008 and 2) by saving so many flights it will be a very green conference right?

1 comment March 27th, 2008

Quality & Usability

Aqui no blog o silêncio tem sido rei! Enfim, muito por causa do trabalho confesso, em particular pelo facto de desde o mês passado ser o novo responsável no SAPO pela Qualidade e Usabilidade. Não é tarefa fácil e outros houve que já tiveram esta pasta e em boa verdade desbravaram muito do caminho que agora me é proposto percorrer. Sem perder muito tempo em explicações e em termos gerais passa por integrar um processo de qualidade no actual processo de desenvolvimento que já existe dentro do SAPO! Só posso dizer que é de facto uma tarefa monstruosa e não é de longe ‘pêra doce’ como se costuma dizer, mas nada como um desafio, certo?


A propósito deste tema, ontem a convite da Associação de Profissionais de Usabilidade (APPU) fiz uma apresentação no Seminário de Usabilidade 2008. A apresentação, até por ser um projecto tão recente foi um bocadinho dar a conhecer aquilo em que estamos a trabalhar em termos de usabilidade (já que era de usabilidade que ali estávamos a tratar) e nesse sentido dei o meu testemunho sobre o processo de integração da usabilidade enquanto factor de peso na qualidade e como é que conseguimos integra-la na já complicada ‘equação’ que é o processo de desenvolvimento de software. Isto é tudo novidade, pelo que não vale a pena falar em sucessos garantidos ou regras de ouro ou sequer dizer que no SAPO somos especialistas nestas matérias, não o somos! Mas estamos a trabalhar a sério para o sermos! Por isso a apresentação acaba por ser um resumo e uma apresentação de algumas das ideias que estamos a usar e uma prova que o simples facto de termos iniciado este caminho já é um sinal de mudança no sentido certo! Digo eu, claro!

Sem mais demoras, aqui estão os slides. No final deste post encontram alguns links para os materiais que eu refiro durante a apresentação:

Documentos anexos:

• Plano de Reunião (KickOff)
• Folha de Observação
• Escala de Satisfação - SUS

This blog as been more than quite and the major reason (besides the usual tons of things I get myself involved with) is the project I’m writing about in this post: since last month I’m responsible for Quality and Usability at SAPO, an Herculean task to re-think and integrate Quality on the already existing software development process. Big indeed, but then again, there’s nothing like a challenge, right?


This post is about just this, and taking the fact that yesterday following an invitation from APPU I gave a presentation during the 2008 Usability Seminar on the subject, in particular what we’re trying to achieve with the overall quality process. Being an Usability centered event I focused mainly on the usability part of the overall quality process and gave a testimony on how we’re integrating the U factor on the quality process. Much of this work is just starting so I won’t pretend I’m an expert or that we at SAPO have loads of experience is this matters… as many people would agree there’s a lot of work ahead and even more that desperately need a change. My feeling about it, is that by starting this process and posing the questions we’re already changing in the right direction

So without further due, here’s the slides. At the bottom of this post, you’ll find some links for the materials I mention on the slides:

Supplemental Materials:

• KickOff Meeting Plan
• Folha de Observação
• SUS - A quick and dirty usability scale

Add comment March 26th, 2008