[tor-dev] Tor Launcher UI feedback follow up

Adam Shostack adam at homeport.org
Sat May 11 16:07:13 UTC 2013


On Fri, May 10, 2013 at 10:04:46PM -0700, Mike Perry wrote:
| Thus spake Mark Smith (mcs at pearlcrescent.com):
| 
| > >>  - Wording suggestion:
| > >>"This computer's internet connection is free of obstacles:
| > >>[greenboldtext]My network operator does not threaten my person
| > >>safety[/greenboldtext]
| >
| > >>"This computer's Internet connection is [redboldtext]censored,
| > >>filtered, or proxied[/redboldtext]
| > 
| > Thanks!  Regarding Tom's suggestion to use colored text, we are not
| > going to tackle that at this time because doing so will complicate
| > localization.  Also, Mike pointed out that in situations where
| > physical harm is a real possibility, the person will be so censored
| > that they will know to chose the Configure option.
| 
| I guess, to be fair, someone should double-check that my point above
| is enough to decide against adding a *full* sentence here (instead of a
| colorized fragment).
| 
| I think the main problem is that sentence fragment coloring is a big
| localization problem, like Mark said. If we want to add color/style
| changes to anything more than a single word, it needs to be at the full
| sentence level. I think that's Mark's main concern, and on reflection,
| it might actually be the biggest issue with this text, perhaps more so
| than my issue if we can find a middle ground for it.
| 
| So, if we can think of a way to add a full sentence to the "Configure"
| option that would help instruct a potential non-censored but still
| heavilly persecuted and surveilled userbase (One example: Citizen
| journalists reporting on the Mexican Drug war) to click Configure
| instead of "Connect to the public Tor network", *without* also freaking
| out everybody else who safely uses the public Tor network, then we have
| a solution.
| 
| Otherwise, I think it should be left as-is?

I have opinions, but no data.  Given that this has been contentious
and discussed repeatedly, is there a way it can be tested?

For example, would it make sense to present it to a set of people and
then survey how they'd respond in various circumstances, or describe
circumstances and ask them what they'd choose?

Obviously, surveys are inferior to live testing, but they're far
easier, and in this case, less dangerous to run.

Adam



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