-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Greg Smith (gregmsmi) wrote: | Thousands of hours of teacher training have already gone in to the | current XO deployments. Any dramatic change to the look and feel of the | GUI will largely negate that.
I strongly disagree; indeed, I feel precisely the opposite. The classic case is the arrival of Windows 95. Windows 95 used a completely different GUI metaphor from Windows 3.1 (the preceding version). Absolutely everything was entirely different: the multitasking metaphor, the launch metaphor, the nature of the window management, the desktop metaphor... all completely new. The interface bore no resemblance to the previous version. Windows 95 sold millions of copies, and was a breakthrough sales leader for Microsoft. I heard endless glowing reviews of the interface. I never heard anyone complain that they had to relearn everything. In part, this was because the applications had not changed greatly. The same would be true in our case: redesigning Sugar does not change which Activities it runs. Perhaps, in the intervening decade, first-world computer users have convinced themselves that they cannot adapt, but they are wrong. Humans are very adaptable. A teacher who has learned one version of Sugar will not have to spend more than a few days or hours with the new version before understanding it. I strongly encourage the Sugar team to choose a "legacy free" philosophy. ~ The user interface should be improved whenever it is possible to do so. Changes to the underlying system that break existing Activities should not be avoided either; the Activity developers will make the necessary changes, as we have been doing all along. Ultimately, this is a moot point. Major changes to Sugar, even after the current redesign, are necessary, and they are coming. They include pervasive chat, bulletin boards, buddy groups, new datastore, and other major improvements. I look forward to their implementation. - --Ben -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v2.0.7 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org iD8DBQFH9N+PUJT6e6HFtqQRAn30AJsGBwK0Z7XX9FAOtn6jGalwErAijwCfd44h atdVnK5vx3a4h+kE7TlFLOs= =CMVg -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- _______________________________________________ Devel mailing list [email protected] http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
