Thank you, everyone, for your feedback on the test site. The goal remains to get the site launched very soonwe¹ll work on a revised build will that will attempt to address the main concerns raised today.
Best, Christian On 2/27/09 2:55 PM, "Carol Farlow Lerche" <[email protected]> wrote: > I second Michael's suggestion about a web design that echoes the Sugar > design. Think how useful this would be if carried to school servers. And as > a basis for web-served Sugar-like activities. > > I have to agree with the conclusion that the test design is off-putting. It > is certainly not intelligible to children. One of the foundations of the > Sugar interface is to make things iconic and simple and universal. The flood > of words, most of them jargon, just doesn't work. > > On Fri, Feb 27, 2009 at 11:46 AM, Michael Stone <[email protected]> > wrote: >> On Fri, Feb 27, 2009 at 11:56:52AM -0500, Benjamin M. Schwartz wrote: >>> >David Farning wrote: >>>> >> Sorry there was a typo in my last email the site is actually >>>> >> http://www-testing.sugarlabs.org/ >>> > >>> >I forcefully object to everything about this website. It is ugly, >>> >off-putting, unnavigable, unreadable, buggy, empty of any helpful >>> >information, and in many other ways among the worst websites I could >>> >possibly imagine for this purpose. It is a very cool javascript tech >>> >demo, which is not at all useful here. >>> > >>> >Meanwhile, the front page of the wiki is beautiful. It presents the >>> >visitor immediately with a statement explaining what Sugar is, and a bunch >>> >of clearly named links to learn more about Sugar and Sugar Labs. >>> >Scrolling down presents a wealth of introductory information about Sugar, >>> >presented in a logical fashion. It does all of this in a >>> >non-headache-inducing color scheme, using complete sentences. Clearly a >>> >lot of work has been put into this, and it shows. >> >> Christian, >> >> I wish I felt differently, but I agree with pretty much everything Ben said. >> In >> fact, I found myself so put off by the new design that I left the site after >> reading no more than two entries. I was particularly frustrated by the >> meaningless colors, the dark -> light background transition, the useless >> sound >> bytes, and the invisible one-word menu that overlaps other text when I >> scroll. >> >> In more detail, this is not the Sugar design that I enjoy -- in Sugar: >> >> * Colors denote individual identity and contribution; they aren't uniform >> over a page and they aren't randomly regenerated on each visit. >> >> * Contrast is used carefully: I would never see a black menu with yellow >> text >> over a pure white background, nor a yellow menu with white text on a >> white >> background. (Both of which I observed.) >> >> * Text colors are never reversed for emphasis. >> >> * Views are scoped and zoomable, and information is usually arranged in >> visually pleasing layouts with gray-out filters or search; not organized >> hierarchically. >> >> (The exception is toolbars, which Eben redesigned in a fashion much more >> consistent with Sugar's design imperatives: >> >> http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Designs/Toolbars >> >> ) >> >> (At any rate, contrast the hierarchy-free Neighborhood View and the Home >> View with semi-hierarchical Journal or the (deeply hierarchical) source >> code layout.) >> >> * For better and for worse, icons are used everywhere in place of short >> text. >> Short text is presented only on hover. >> >> Now, as an alternate suggestion: why not use the desire for a nicer website >> as an opportunity to test out our actual underlying UI design principles? >> >> For example, I'd love to see a Sugar front-page that used the Frame and its >> zoomable Views for navigation, perhaps organizing hierarchical content with >> Eben's Toolbar design. >> >> Regards, >> >> Michael >> >> P.S. - Just think of the educational opportunity that's slipping away by not >> dogfooding the existing design work. :) >> _______________________________________________ >> IAEP -- It's An Education Project (not a laptop project!) >> [email protected] >> http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep > > -- Christian Marc Schmidt [email protected] Pentagram Design, Inc. 204 Fifth Avenue New York, NY 10010 212/ 802 0248
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