I'm not saying we should give anybody substandard equipment, I don't necessarily think Sugar is substandard (i haven't had enough time to fully evaluate it yet). All I'm saying, like pauric, is that sometimes things that seem unintuitive to adults (or at least adults already familiar with a specific type of computing) are not so for children.
I also believe that children shouldn't really be led or instructed as much as some people do.. If, as pauric said, the OLPC is intended to excourage exploration and thusly has a UI that is slightly obtuse, that might just be the right approach. If the UI hinders them from doing what they need to do it would be a failure.... if it opens up other possibilities for deeper exploration and hacking then it could be a huge success. You're right, just because we -can- figure it out doesn't mean we should have to. But that's not really what i intended to say.... I just wanted to put forth the idea that exploratory interfaces could work, depending on the goals. I see the OLPC program as more than giving people access to information, it's also giving them access to new technology and skills, building the system to encourage hacking seems like a good idea to me. On Dec 26, 2007 4:59 PM, Dan Saffer <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > On Dec 26, 2007, at 12:34 PM, Matthew Nish-Lapidus wrote: > > > If these kids are given access to a hacker friendly system they will > > learn how to make it do what they want. Pauric is entirely right, > > children learn best by exploring and being "thrown into the deep end." > > I'm sure a lot of us here have stories from our childhood about our > > first computers and how we learned how to use them without > > documentation or helpful interfaces. > > This argument doesn't work, logically. To summarize: let's give kids > sub-standard equipment. They're smart. They'll figure it out. > > Now remove kids and put users in there. Or adults. Why would we > tolerate a lesser product for kids, simply because they can figure it > out? Adults can figure out Windows 3.1, but I wouldn't want to inflict > it on them. > > The question for me becomes, what is the ultimate goal of giving the > kids laptops? My guess is that it gives them access to information > that they otherwise wouldn't have. Does the current device and UI > support that goal sufficiently, without forcing users to modify it to > achieve that goal? I don't know the answer. > > Dan > > > > ________________________________________________________________ > *Come to IxDA Interaction08 | Savannah* > February 8-10, 2008 in Savannah, GA, USA > Register today: http://interaction08.ixda.org/ > > ________________________________________________________________ > Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! > To post to this list ....... [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe > List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines > List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help > -- Matt Nish-Lapidus work: [EMAIL PROTECTED] / www.bibliocommons.com -- personal: [EMAIL PROTECTED] / www.nishlapidus.com ________________________________________________________________ *Come to IxDA Interaction08 | Savannah* February 8-10, 2008 in Savannah, GA, USA Register today: http://interaction08.ixda.org/ ________________________________________________________________ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ....... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help
