[ux] Tor Configuration Dialogue User Study Update

[David Fifield]

On Thu, Dec 10, 2015 at 08:24:27PM -0000, Brennan Novak wrote:
> > A lot of censors block web sites but they don't try to block
> > circumvention systems... Other censors block not only web sites, but
> > also circumvention systems like Tor. Against these censors you need
> > to use bridges and pluggable transports. This is what censors like
> > Iran and China do.
> 
> Perhaps the interface should explain this in a more simple human
> way. The clickable mockups linked above offer "Connect Directly"
> or "Configure" as well as the jargon-y "Choose this to manually
> setup your bridge & proxy" which reminds me of Vidalia of
> yesteryear... which I found confusing.
> 
> If a user has been educated about the type of censorship they are
> under, what bridges & proxies are, and how to configure them-
> then this will make sense. However, if a user does not know these
> things, then this is a complete wash in terms of being "usable"
> to new Tor users.
> 
> An alternate could be something like:
> 
> https://brennannovak.com/uploads/images/scratch/Tor-Censorship-UI.png

I like the way that looks. We have to be careful, though, not to
optimize for the censored case too much. There are still lots of users
who use Tor Browser for anonymity and it doesn't make sense to show them
two options up front that have to do with censorship. (Compare the
metrics graphs for directly connecting users and bridge users to see the
difference.)

> Side note: the proprietary VPN service "Freedome" made by
> F-Secure has one of the most usable connection managers I've seen
> to date.

This is a good observation. I'd like to spend some time just using the
interfaces of other tools to see what other ways there are.