Imagine you are a busy, very requested investor, and receive that:

That’s a business plan for an elegant gift packing service. It was designed by my office mate Ticiana and her group at college.

I bet you can guess what of these shavers and toothbrushes belong to me or my wife just by observing their size, color, and appearance.

Don Norman says in his famous book Emotional Design (p. 69):

[...] Visceral design is all about immediate emotional impact. It has to feel good, look good. Sensuality and sexuality play roles. This is a major role of “point of presence” displays in stores, in brochures, in advertisements, and in other enticements that emphasize appearance. These may be a store’s only chance of getting the customer, for many a product is purchased on looks alone. Similarly, otherwise highly rated products may be turned down if they do not appeal to the aesthetic sense of the potential buyer.

Commuters access to the bus platform at Afogados metro station in Recife. Photo taken by Gilvan.

Just for the record: today I obtained my M.S. in Computer Science (Federal University of Pernambuco). I thank everybody who attended my defense or supported me somehow through these years, specially professors Alex Gomes and Luciano Meira. Special thanks to my fiancée and family for the prayers.

As soon as we start the patent procedure, I’ll be able to make my dissertation available here. By now, these were the title and abstract of my research:

Let’s coffee? Design of a ubiquitous experience to support conversational learning at the workplace

Nonetheless the systems and digital sources of information aimed to solve communication issues in companies of all sizes, an ancient technology for knowledge creation and sharing remains effective and efficient through human history – “talking”, informally and face-to-face. In this work we performed an observational study in a technology company to comprehend the phenomenon of informal conversations among its workers. As the main result, we propose a ubiquitous experience to augment face-to-face conversations in the workplace by using content recommendation as people talk.

Keywords: Conversational learning, Workplace, Ubiquitous computing, Experience design.

Visibility of system status: the system should always keep users informed about what is going on, through appropriate feedback within reasonable time.

Match between system and the real world: the system should speak the users’ language, with words, phrases and concepts familiar to the user, rather than system-oriented terms. Follow real-world conventions, making information appear in a natural and logical order.

(From Nielsen’s usability heuristics).

My friends from Latitude14 recently asked me some questions about my professional life and Karine has posted the complete interview (in Portuguese).

That’s part of an worthy effort to get people sharing their experiences in the UX field. Congratulations and thanks for the opportunity, guys!

Last week we had the Brazilian Symposium of Human Factors on Computer Systems (more known as ‘IHC’). The event was held at the Pontificia Universidade Catolica do Rio Grande do Sul (PUCRS) and celebrated the 10th anniversary of HCI events in Brazil.

Group visiting the Museum of Sciences and Technology (PUCRS)

Keynote speeches were given by Mary Czerwinsky (Principal Researcher and Manager, Microsoft Research Visualization & Interaction Research Group) and Regina Bernhaupt (Assistant Professor, University of Salzburg, Austria).

Victor and I presented CESAR’s Lab to the HCI community and talked about our experience in integrating usability methods into confidential projects protected by non-disclosure agreements.

One funny moment happened when Professor Milene Silveira (PUCRS) – who impeccably organized the event – was trying to begin her presentation and a salsa started from nobody knows where :)

I also had the chance to be part of the committee for the Evaluation Competition category. By the way, congratulations to the team of the Universidade de Fortaleza!

IHC’08 was a unique opportunity to meet old friends and make new ones. My best wishes for everyone who attended the event!

With Professor Amanda Meincke Melo (Rede Anhanguera)

With Victor (CESAR), Ana Filardi (Embrapa), and Fabiane

With Pedro Belleza (Grupo RBS)

Unique t-shirt made specially for me by the girl I love! Dilbert and Norman do rule. UXrecife logo is on the corner.

Taken by Gustavo while doing ethnography in Recife.