The Cocoon Blog
The Internet as it should be: private, secure and virus free

That was a long night. Certainly the most challenging session so far. Not because of technical difficulties, product glitches, or difficult testers, but rather because Notifications is a tough concept for people to wrap their minds around.

People have a strong concept of what email is. Usually, it’s Microsoft Outlook or webmail like Hotmail, Gmail, and YahooMail. People also have a fixed idea about email addresses — theirname@gmail.com or some such thing. And people have a sense of inevitability about spam.

You give out your email address, and then you get spammed. You hope and pray that you won’t get spammed, but you get spammed. Then you get resigned to the fact that you’ll continue to get spammed. Loans and credit reports, porn and personal ads, pharmaceuticals and herbal remedies, and even spamware. (Do the guys offering spamware via spam not see the tough sell?)

It doesn’t have to be this way. People don’t have to feel powerless with email. With Cocoon, you suddenly have power over email, over how many messages you receive from a person or company, over whom you receive email from.

Here’s an example that dropped testers’ jaws to the floor. Let’s say you have a personal email address, your-name@gmail.com, and it’s linked to three Notification Addresses you’ve created. Well, what if one of those Notification Addresses is getting spammed like crazy? What do you do? Simple, delete that Notification Address. Delete. The Notification Address is gone forever. Any email going to that address goes into Internet ether, never to be seen. You don’t have to change your personal email address.

Ever tried to delete your Gmail account? It’s not fun. You can do it, but then you need to tell all your contacts about your new email address. What a hassle . . . for you and for them.

Truthfully, there were some problems with the Notification interface. The testers got the concept, but the user interface confused them. That’s something we’re already working on, and it’s the first major UI issue that had to go back to the drawing board. But that’s the process of testing. When we’re done with the redesign, Cocoon will be much better.

As I talk about Cocoon with friends and family, I find myself answering the same questions fairly often, so I thought I’d answer them here, too.

“Who is Cocoon for?”

I could say anyone or everyone, but that doesn’t really get to their point. So instead I say: “Cocoon is for people or businesses that want to be able to use the Internet without exposing their computers to viruses or spyware, and they want to protect their online privacy.”

“Is it for techies or the average user?”

Again “both” is the simple answer, but a better answer is “The average user appreciates Cocoon because it provides protection and privacy without altering how you use the Internet. But techies appreciate it because they recognize how simply (maybe even elegantly) such a powerful service is being provided, and what cool features are coming along with it.”

I’ve finally come to realize why some people seem to have a hard time wrapping their minds around Cocoon. What we are creating is a new paradigm.

Just because you are buying something online doesn’t mean you need to provide your email address or other private information. Using the Internet doesn’t mean you have to expose yourself to viruses, malware or spyware.

What is amazing is how comfortable people have become with the inadequacies of the Internet as we now experience it. What’s exciting is exposing people to a whole new experience. Cocoon is coming soon!

Another round, another group of testers.

Why do I like user testing? Well, for one, it’s social. I get to meet new people. I like the interaction and fun of discussing the concept of Cocoon with people that rarely think about what it means to be on the Internet. Most of all, I like seeing what people can do with the test version of Cocoon.

Our testers come from a wide range of backgrounds — as young as 13 and as old as 60 — people that can make a computer do back-flips, and others that can barely check their email. By the end of the night, our testers have taken their Cocoon experiences in entirely different directions. But they always, always get it. For some reason, Cocoon is easy to use. It’s all about good user interface design.

The testers feel challenged sometimes. We’re asking them to use software they’ve never seen before, sometimes to do things they’ve never done before. The UI needs to be simple, but powerful. Why have a bevy of menus when icons work just as well or better? Why stash history in long lists when the data could be viewed easily as collections of thumbnail images?

The changes to the basic browsing experience really seem to resonate with people. And, if something isn’t working right, if the testers don’t understand something in the user interface, we get a ton of insight on how to change it. That’s the part I love the most. What the testers say and do has a direct effect on how our interface feels, what it looks like, and how it works.

“The massive phishing scam broken up by federal authorities this week is only a hint at what many say is an insidious and growing problem on the Internet.

Federal authorities on Wednesday indicted 53 people in the U.S on various charges related to a phishing scheme that victimized thousands of customers of two major U.S. banks. Authorities in Egypt arrested another 47 people there on the same charges.”

Protecting your identity and email address with Cocoon’s proxy server and unique email “Notifications” will place Cocoon between you and any phishing scheme. Think it couldn’t happen to you? It almost happened to FBI Director Robert Mueller.

The first round of user testing is done. I have to say, it went a lot better than expected.

We had four people come in to test the user interface of our browsing service. I considered this the first true test of our product. Would people like the interface? Would they like the concept of Cocoon? Would they like the “Places” feature? The answer we got was a resounding yes. They liked all of it . . . a lot.

By far the biggest hit with testers was Places. You can think of Places as history, but Places is so much more. For most people, history is just a list in your browser that shows where you’ve been. Maybe it helps you find places you just visited. But that’s it. Try scrolling through long lists with weeks and weeks of accumulated websites trying to find a specific site you visited once, and which you forgot to bookmark but want right now. It’s like trying to find the proverbial needle in a haystack. If you want something better, as the testers found they did, Places is for you.

Cocoon captures a thumbnail image of every “place” you visit. (You need to have the “save history” preference turned on.) You get to see your history graphically and grouped by domain name. You can search and sort your Places. You can tag pages for easy categorization and future reference. Can’t remember what day of the week you found that restaurant website? No problem, visually scroll the thumbnails. Or search for the word you think was in the name.

And the testers? They ate it up. One person “loved seeing” history. Another tester made great use of the search feature without being told what it was. Of course, if you’re a traditionalist, you can always view your history the old fashion way — as a list.

To the testers, Places almost looked like a small revolution in browsing history, (no pun intended). That’s exactly what we want.

According to McAfee, last year, the amount of malware designed to steal your passwords increased 400 percent.

This past September 58% of US computers were infected by malware.

But as I discussed with a coworker today, people either understand the problem and are excited by the pending solutions that Cocoon offers, or they are totally oblivious to both the threat and the need for a solution. I believe our best method of getting Cocoon out to the public will be simply word of mouth by those that “get it”.