Web 3.0

[D856C]

There aren't any dot-version changes because there are no specifics to these thresholds, just vague observations and nebulous generalizations.

So, what does 37signals consider NOT to be Web 2.0 ...

1. Ajax, RSS, etc
2. Feature lists
3. VC funding
4. Hiring, hiring, and more hiring
5. “Stealth mode”
6. Public betas
7. “Proprietary” formats
8. “Revolutionary” anything
9. Google, Yahoo, or Microsoft
10. Boards of directors
11. Selfishness
-- The top 10 things that aren’t Web 2.0

You are already absolutely clear on that already, right? And here are 500 answers to what Web 2.0 is. About the only real revelation you can make is perception is reality -- people will implement what they believe Web 2.0 is.

The true beauty of Web 2.0 is graphic designers can stay in their silos and implement "sweet gradients, rounded corners, and earth tones." Programmers can call it any particular code fad coming down the 'tubes. Each can stay on their side on the firewall (it's a social firewall, comically opposite the spirit of web 2.0), and opine "Web 2.0 is anything I choose it to mean" like Humpty-Drumpty 2.0.

We'll need Web 3.0 to figure out what Web 2.0 was about.

Alot of the so called Web 3.0 does actually focus on usability,

Pretending to throw in a name without a profile or personal details does not make "Claudia" anything like the personas usability people or interaction designers use. The writing of that page seems clear the persona is, literally, "Claudia's browser," not Claudia. Claudia is a prop for the spec developers to use.

You'll note "Claudia's browser" has objectives, not Claudia. She isn't even trying to accomplish anything and lacks the goals a persona usually has. It's not even a bad persona, it's an awkward attempt at anthropomorphizing the browser. ....And now we're back to the sad and pathetic side of social computing.

Ideally once you have a real persona, you would back it up with user observation, including a prototype the developer sits users in front of and watches the interaction. Usability doesn't work without users.

[Scriptage]

Pretending to throw in a name without a profile or personal details does not make "Claudia" anything like the personas usability people or interaction designers use. The writing of that page seems clear the persona is, literally, "Claudia's browser," not Claudia. Claudia is a prop for the spec developers to use.

You'll note "Claudia's browser" has objectives, not Claudia. She isn't even trying to accomplish anything and lacks the goals a persona usually has. It's not even a bad persona, it's an awkward attempt at anthropomorphizing the browser. ....And now we're back to the sad and pathetic side of social computing.

I take it you are talking about P3P, this isn't a case of an "awkward attempt at anthropomorphizing the browser", it's a case of attempting to alert the user as to what will be done with the data that they submit to the site, so if a site declares that the users e-mail address will be shared with third parties and the user has decided that they do not want this to happen then the browser will stop the form from being submitted without confirmation (if that is not usability then I don't know what is).

You'll note "Claudia's browser" has objectives, not Claudia.

I think you will find that "Claudia" sets the browser settings therefore the browser is acting on her behalf.

Regards

Carl

[D856C]

you will find that "Claudia" sets the browser settings

Yes, I did read that. Which users have the objective of setting browser settings?! None but a figment of the developer's imagination. Claudia isn't a persona, she's the developer's imaginary friend.

Why change browser settings? What do the new setting accomplish for Claudia the old settings didn't? You never read a description of Claudia's motives for being on the site or what role these new setting play in a scenario where Claudia can now do some thing she couldn't otherwise. Claudia isn't interacting with a site's online catalog; the browser is exchanging data with it.

And finally, wouldn't it be more "usable" to make it so Claudia never has to think about browser settings -- period?!?! Sounds very Web 1.0 to me. Sounds very much like the mental gymnastics Flash developers use.

Claudia isn't using a particular browser setting to reach a goal. Changing the browser settings is an isolated task without context or purpose -- making Claudia a ventriloquist dummy.

And, for anyone who has actually read about or developed a persona, it goes over about as well as a ventriloquist act. With a genuine persona, you'd know what Claudia is shopping for, and exactly what problem she had which prompted a change of browser settings. (FYI most users don't enjoy changing browser settings or find it a trivial thing)

In any event, taking the idea of social computing at face value, wouldn't it be more like social computing to have humans interact with a prototype? Isn't it against the spirit of Web 2.0 to surgically remove the user from the feedback loop?

Such practices, while quite common, are how you get articles like OpenID Usability is Not an Oxymoron, with the same mixture of developer annoyance and desperation about why wider adoption is always just around the corner.

A decade of navel-gazing could be argued to be "social," yet I just don't see this oft-repeated pattern as the intended outcome so doesn't qualify as design.

Related:

Yahoo Users Befuddled by OpenID is what happens when you engage in the Web 1.0 practice of monologing at users instead of engaging in a dialog with users. Step Two is usually a 40 Million Dollar ad blitz to "educate" recalcitrant users the bugs are really features.

Fear and Loathing in Las Personas is about how, if you have no idea of users and seek to avoid user interaction, a persona is a bad way to go. I can imagine the socially inept might find persona development attractive. Not being very well versed in putting themselves in another's shoes merely results in a deeply flawed persona at best, willful self delusion at its more common worst. Avoiding user testing and interaction is not a good objective for persona design.

See how that objective thingy works is, you do the one thing (developing a persona) to achieve some more important other thing (Avoiding unpleasant interaction with users and seeking to avoid bad news on the way to shoving a product out the door).

And we call the little thing a task and the more important thing the real objective of the task. So a doctor might spend almost all their time on treating a disease or injury, but the objective is health. So Claudia's task might be to change browser settings, but the objective is missing. Stripping off objectives reduces Claudia's existence and sole reason for being to clicking a link and changing browser settings.

Further, I predict Claudia will never encounter a problem which would require the developer to change anything. The purpose of persona design is to question basic assumptions and change the specifications and resulting code. Claudia's purpose, on the other hand, would seem to be making sure change from outside never disturbs the developer implementation model.

Three User Experience Guidelines for Ajax Sliders tutorial (unlike others) is a Web 2.0 tutorial that happens to be about Ajax. It’s one of the few available tutorials which takes the focus off code to dicuss how factors of implementation make the user interaction different. That's design, because user interaction with the code is taken into consideration and factors into how code is developed.

[Scriptage]

Yes, I did read that. Which users have the objective of setting browser settings?! None but a figment of the developer's imagination. Claudia isn't a persona, she's the developer's imaginary friend.

Many! Many people use custom stylesheets, turn Javascript off, disable Flash, browse without pictures, turn animation on or off, do the same to auto complete, I could go on and on and on. If the feature is available then people will use it.

Why change browser settings? What do the new setting accomplish for Claudia the old settings didn't?

Alot, as I said before her privacy is preserved in the way that she stipulates.

And finally, wouldn't it be more "usable" to make it so Claudia never has to think about browser settings -- period?!?! Sounds very Web 1.0 to me. Sounds very much like the mental gymnastics Flash developers use.

This is an impossibility; with P3P being a W3C recommendation and the major browser vendors increasing support for web standards P3P will be incorporated into most websites in the future, with sites not having a policy file will be treated as untrusted; the policy file would then constitute a legal declaration of the sites compliance to data storage legislation i.e., the Data Protection Act, ensuring the users data will not be used in any way that they do not agree to.

Claudia isn't using a particular browser setting to reach a goal. Changing the browser settings is an isolated task without context or purpose -- making Claudia a ventriloquist dummy.

Wrong. The browser settings for P3P have the context of data privacy, her goal is to not have her e-mail address spammed by third parties.

This isn't an argument, it's fact.

Regards

Carl

[Pezzy-Mist]

You two should go on a date or something, seems you've got a lot to talk about

[Scriptage]

True, we could go on a dinner date but he might start telling me that the fork doesn't take into account the users feelings and such... you need a voice activated spork that tackles the mash!

[D856C]

Wrong. The browser settings for P3P have the context of data privacy, her goal is to not have her e-mail address spammed by third parties.

While avoiding the annoyances caused by previous flawed implementations which never acknowledged human nature could be integrated into a persona, that is not stated.

It could be concerns over identity theft, but that would be my inference of the developer's objective for P3P.

Claudia, on the other hand, could find she's being spammed anyway. Why?

End-users may view the fact that the policy does not specify the possible recipients of data disclosure as a vulnerability. Could be the other-recipient tag is not as explicit as one would desire as shown in the P3P statement.

If Claudia provided certain data in the past, she could conceivably want to provide more in a later interaction with the site. Using the persona as an active tool of development you would work through a scenario where Claudia wants to know how long the current privacy policies have been in effect.

The developer would discover P3P provides an EXPIRY tag but there's no way to specify a time or date upon which the policy went into effect.

Personas work through scenarios. Ventriloquist dummies don't.

Finally, you'd use a persona to discover problems within the implementing organization. You could possibly update or change your organization's privacy policy (Not P3P). In that way, you'd use Claudia's perspective to step outside your organization and view it with an eye toward improvement. That is, if your objective isn't to do everything in your power to avoid changing anything.

It's just as important to use personas to troubleshoot how P3P gets implemented within each organization. It's simply assumed there won't be a mismatch between what P3P provides and what's in the policy. Rather than hammering a square peg into a round hole, a properly done persona could help improve the policy itself.

Personas are used to explore contingencies and reveal problems.

However, this won't happen if all developers see is the ludicrously one-dimensional Claudia.

Ventriloquist dummies are used to put on an act.

[Scriptage]

If Claudia provided information in the past, she could conceivably want to provide more in a later interaction with the site.

Claudia has decided that she doesn't want her information to be shared with third parties, whether she provides information now or in two years time that does not change. The way this works is as follows: Claudia fills out a form for an order, she provides her name, address and telephone number; upon submitting the form she receives a message from the browser stating that she will receive phone calls from telemarketers because she has not selected the opt out box; Claudia can now decide if this is O.K for this company or to cancel the form submission and tick the box (as per her P3P settings).

Using the persona as an active tool of development you would work through a scenario where Claudia wants to know how long the current privacy policies have been in effect.

The developer would discover P3P provides an EXPIRY tag but there's no way to specify a time or date upon which the policy went into effect.

P3P has been designed to be a flexible future proof standard, you could quite easily use the EXTENSION tag to add an implementation date, prior version link etc. P3Pv1.1 is still a working draft, there is a possibility for native support of these features.

Regards

Carl

[D856C]

designed to be a flexible future proof standard

Guess what. The future hasn't made its pronouncement on that. Personas would be a way to make that claim with some confidence, if you used them.

P3Pv1.1 is still a working draft, there is a possibility for native support of these features.

I for one rest assured Claudia will not contribute in any way to that decision.

[sketchy]

Has Claudia got big jugs?