João Rufino's Blog

This is my first post about this matter and I expect to write a few more about this in the future. This post contains a general overview of my opinion regarding usability and user experience.

The Internet is all about users, clients, products, services etc. You have users and clients on one side and products or/and services on the other. It is like going to the a regular shop. The person that is presenting and selling you the product has to be nice, has to convince you that you are on the right place (sometimes even before you actually see the product your buying). The main characteristic of the web is that we use the “serve yourself”. The problem sometimes is not the product that is so bad that sales do not exist, the problem is the process. It is very confusing and annoying for the potential client and he gives up before he buys.

How to improve the quality of your site? In general what users want? How to pitch you sales? Those are questions that I can’t answer in specific but I will give you some guidelines that for sure will bring better results.

Stay tuned…

Posted by João Rufino under Business & Internet & Marketing | 2 Comments »

Everyone has its own idea of what is a dream. What it means what you dreamed last night? Well, here my theory. A dream usually is a back-end revelation of a non interesting memory. Like any other machine, the human brain also has its standby period. During this period we get the opportunity to dream. we pick the most uninteresting memory and we elaborate the “what if”. We see different perspectives and for this we ignore time,space and laws of physic.

Results are often interesting or.. maybe not. You dream about the conversation that you had but it did not go the way you wanted. You dream situations that came to your mind while you were awake. We often dream about things that make no sense after we wake up. Our front end is not prepared to interpret these messages. Not that the message is encrypted.. in my opinion.. it is just garbled and the content has no value.

A dream can in some small cases have value. It happen to me several times when I am working heavily in a project that the result comes in a dream. These cases are simple.. Your back-end used its abstraction to solve your problem. It helped that time but we cant count on in every day

I would love to continue but it is a better conversation to have with a cup of coffee or tea.

Posted by João Rufino under Misc | No Comments »

Never this word was so important in organization as it is on this XXI century. Motivation drives to ideas, drives to communication and drives to “getting things done”. I’ve seen many places ad many teams that it made a difference. It is better to have a motivated person that knows only half of a really non motivated one. While the motivation of this person will take her to do the extra mile, the non motivated will do less and try to drag others with them.

As a peer, team lead or manager it is important that you stick together. Be the point person, try to address the issues and motivate others (and get motivated by them).

Motivation is an interesting concept because it has no formula. Some people is just the money, some is just the colleagues, some is just the challenges and some require all the above to get motivated. Ever situation is a “one off” case. I believe that is worth to try to address singular issues with certain people. Sometimes you can’t solve the problem but the majority of the times, all it takes is just to say the write words and explain the correct things.

This attitude will bring your team close together and your ability to motivate others is often recognized as a great virtue.

Motivate yourself by motivating the world.

EDIT: I have a new post on Motivation and some specific actions to keep yourself/others motivated

Posted by João Rufino under Business | 2 Comments »

Last week I met a few colleagues in Zurich that are renowned computer engineers some of them are in my opinion associated with the history of computers itself, both on the infrastructure and on the front end side of products and I got really good advises and sayings from them and I decide to add my own as well.

• Complicated things usually fail in complicated ways. Start from the obvious although… the saying usually prevails.

• If it is complicated… explain it in a very simple way like if your audience is 5 years old but in a rush.

• Don’t be afraid of small projects and share small ideas. They sometimes are small but they can mean something and become great ideas!

• Please… when you have a simple project to implement do not make it hard to understand just to ‘look good’. People buy it once but it wont look good a second time.

• Ideas…ideas…ideas… They are the future of this business and don’t be afraid of your creativity. Phrase it well and go for it!

Posted by João Rufino under Internet & Misc | No Comments »