Re: [IxDA Discuss] OLPC: Sugar Not So Sweet?
I didn´t observed directly the XO in use, but I´m very skeptical about
expert reviewers from outside of the target community. If the
interface is different maybe that´s because the situation is
different. The XO is a socially oriented machine. Any fair evaluation
must be in a social context, not by a context unaware individual.
The XO was tested in many schools in the world. Here are videos of XO
in use in a brazilian classroom (Luciana de Abreu School - Porto
Alegre):
http://br.youtube.com/watch?v=w3XlQgqAvWQ
http://br.youtube.com/watch?v=fRpCmV5zHYo
http://br.youtube.com/watch?v=FMcw0PtYTaA
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Re: [IxDA Discuss] Design in Interaction Design?
Seasons Greetings all from the peanut gallery of workers working on Christmas, with nothing better to do then comment on the state of ID: In response to Murli's thoughtful Straw Man theory and Katie's Copy Paste abilities; Design does mean a lot of things for sure, but it's not undefinable, especially when you're considering something as specific as Interaction Design. Interaction Design is (sort of, maybe, just guessing, could be, probably is, who knows?), where you're designing UI elements for states, flows, transitions and support for software/websites/interactive devices. Of course other design aspects can help and play a part, but primarily, (for the job description, if we had one, at least I'm guessing here, we don't have one right?), you're just doing the above list. And reducing the job description down to it's inseperable components is in no way a Straw Man, rather I believe that is a pretty common, (basis of science), way to determine what something really is. You can't be an Interaction Designer and NOT Design, thus it is the Fundemental and Most Important aspect of the Job. Other aspects are important as well, for sure, but they could be handled by another team member, or one ID could do one skill and another do another one, simply they are separable from the job description. Having said the above, the Grim Prospects of Reality tends to rear it's ugly head at time of clarity like this, (clear as mud clarity that is), pointing out the most important aspect of our job is being Politically Savy and/or getting an Advanced Degree from a Top University, and/or being an incredible Bull Sh*tter and/or having Lots of Connections. Thus if you couldn't design sh*t, well you'd still be the boss, making design really not important in the slightest bit, (as long as you're company is well capitalized ;). Merry Christmas and Happy New Year All, may 2008 bring more wild and thought provoking discussion! *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
Re: [IxDA Discuss] Does eye-tracking carry any real meaning?
I studied a bit about eye-tracking when I was working for newspapers. We were concerned then mostly about the readers' flow as they scanned the page, and how our layouts might call attention to key elements such as informational graphics or advertising. It seemed to me then that the only way you could draw valid conclusions from eye-tracking was if you also gathered subjective data on the user's cognitive process. What information did s/he retain a minute after reading? Five minutes later? An hour later? What did s/he recall about the images or the layout and design, and how or whether they reinforced the primary messages? How relevant did s/he perceive the material to be to his/her life before *and* after the experience? If that information is correlated with the eye-tracking data, you may have something useful. I think it's also important to ask whether such studies are likely to merit their costs (time and money), compared to other user testing and the information already available to us about how to design effectively. In some rare cases, given an effective methodology, those costs will be justified. This may be comparable to a doctor who orders extensive testing just in case -- but not for all patients. Is eye-tracking commonly used in modern interaction design, and if so, how? I'm curious to know. Jeff Seager P.S. Cheers to Jared on the Nilsson reference! _ Don't get caught with egg on your face. Play Chicktionary! http://club.live.com/chicktionary.aspx?icid=chick_wlhmtextlink1_dec *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
Re: [IxDA Discuss] OLPC: Sugar Not So Sweet?
I didn´t observed directly the XO in use, but I´m very skeptical about expert reviewers from outside of the target community. If the interface is different maybe that´s because the situation is different. I haven't used it *extensively*, but since getting my hands on an XO last week, I've had a few chances to spend an hour or so with it and check things out. I agree it would be foolish to judge the social aspects of the OS without being surrounded by other people using them so the social components could be examined, but I disagree that the difference in situation should be given as much leeway as you're giving it. Good design principles can be applied regardless, and the XO is lacking in this area. For example, the #1 thing I've noticed with Sugar is the same #1 thing I've noticed in most web apps: an incredible lack of instructive design elements. I think the people working on this OS and on the multitude of applications that can be used to extend it are doing fantastic things - don't get me wrong - but they're in desperate need of a skilled interface designer, at the very least. From the very first moment, it's difficult to tell even how to *open* the laptop. Once you turn it on and start trying to make sense of the environment, most clicks are guesses. Few are educated guesses. There's simply nothing - *anywhere* - that communicates how to make things work, what they do, what they mean, etc. There's nothing instructive about the UI, nothing self-evident. And the Getting Started guide at www.laptopgiving.org/start is more of a marketing piece than a how-to. It would convince you to buy the product, but does a poor job of telling you how to use it. You don't have to be an ethnographic design researcher to know that getting users up to speed is essential for a good experience. One can only hope that those who deliver these machines are also sticking around to train their recipients. It's clearly stated on the OLPC site that they do not offer tech support because they hope users will become savvy enough with the XO to fix issues on their own. I think this is ... well, insane. Including an app for writing basic Python does not, by any means, ensure that the kids on the other end of the OLPC initiative will ever understand it. So far, a huge number of design decisions have clearly been made by the proverbial developer. And he's not just *any* developer, he's a *UNIX* developer. He is - let's face it - in his own league of geekiness. On another note, can I ask why you're exploring this, Dan? Are you collecting info for a paper or some other purpose, or are you just curious? -r- *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
Re: [IxDA Discuss] OLPC: Sugar Not So Sweet?
These are interesting commentaries. I think there is a lot of value in looking at this operating system being open to 'different paradigms' and very little value looking at it from the perspective of a hardcore windows or mac user. These computers are going to be used by children with little or no exposure to personal computers. From everything I've read about the development of Sugar it seems that it was built to support the tasks of these children. Whether it's successful or not needs to be tested in the field rather than the laboratory. Sugar is also based on the faith that a community of users will develop. If these communities develop then the operating system has much more potential than it would for individual users. I am hoping that once it is set free in the world some unpredicted things will happen. Cheers, Julie On Dec 26, 2007 12:40 AM, Dan Saffer [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I'd be interested in hearing from interaction designers who have played extensively with the new One Laptop Per Child UI (Sugar). I saw the first public demo of Sugar back in August at AP's UX Week: http://www.adaptivepath.com/blog/2007/08/14/uxweek2007-lisa-strausfeld-on-one-laptop-per-child/ but never really got to play with it. I was willing to keep an open mind about the UI, even though it uses very different paradigms than the ones we're all used to. But then Christopher Fahey's critique: http://www.graphpaper.com/2007/12-23_challenge-if-you-cant-say-something-nice-about-olpc From what I've seen, the UI bears all the hallmarks of a user interface disaster, a case study in designer-driven design. I don't understand why the whole UX world isn't awash in skepticism over an OS that looks all the world like a Microsoft BOB for the Wallpaper* set. and Adam Greenfield's http://speedbird.wordpress.com/2007/12/22/twenty-four-hours-with-my-olpc/ Despite its inclusion of some innovative and useful features, I find the OLPC device's Sugar operating system poorly integrated with applications (here nicely dubbed activities), to the degree that it may well be impossible to evaluate whether the underlying idea ever had any merit. My first impression - and I reiterate, it's only that - is that many of the applications bundled with the device epitomize everything that's wrong with FLOSS user interfaces, even when the OS itself has been created by professional information designers. And more... http://issues-in-publishing.blogspot.com/2007/12/first-reactions-to-olpc.html Sugar is the operating system on the XO, and it, too, is very cool, but it is slow, and not intuitive for the hardcore windows and mac users. It is just not as advanced an operating system, and it is clear that it was built by developers for developers. I'd be curious to see how the UI (and the machine in general) are working in the field. I know for fact that no generative user research was done for these, but I wonder if any testing has been done since then. And how about some heuristic evaluations from this community? 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 *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
Re: [IxDA Discuss] OLPC: Sugar Not So Sweet?
http://www.cnn.com/2007/TECH/ptech/12/25/onelaptop.onevillage.ap/index.html Take Kevin, the aspiring trumpet player. Sitting in his dirt-floor kitchen as his mother cooks lunch, he draws a soccer field on his XO, then erases it. Kevin plays a song by Caliente, his favorite combo, that he recorded off Arahuay's single TV channel. He shows a reporter photos he took of him with his 3-year-old brother. A bare light bulb hangs by a wire from the ceiling. A hen bobs around the floor. There are no books in this two-room house. Kevin's parents didn't get past the sixth grade. Indeed, the laptop project also has adults in its sights. Parents in Arahuay are asking Mendoza, the visiting psychologist, what the Internet can do for them. Among them is Charito Arrendondo, 39, who sheds brief tears of joy when a reporter asks what the laptop belonging to ruddy-cheeked Miluska -- the youngest of her six children -- has meant to her. Miluska's father, it turns out, abandoned the family when she was 1. We never imagined having a computer, said Arrendondo, a cook. Is she afraid to use the laptop, as is typical of many Arahuay parents, about half of whom are illiterate? No, I like it. Sometimes when I'm alone and the kids are not around I turn it on and poke around. Arrendondo likes to play checkers on the laptop. It's also got chess, which I sort of know, she said, pausing briefly. I'm going to learn. Robert: It's clearly stated on the OLPC site that they do not offer tech support because they hope users will become savvy enough with the XO to fix issues on their own. I think this is ... well, insane. I'd like to think that there's a future generation of nerds, who like me, got their start supporting fixing their friend's computers. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CmYDgncMhXw Frankly, I think throwing kids in at the deep end of maker/hacker culture is a stroke of genius. Robert: So far, a huge number of design decisions have clearly been made by the proverbial developer. I'm sure you're aware Alan Kay is a principal designer on the project although I dont know the extent of his involvement. From the interviews I've read there's method to his madness, I might not necessarily agree with the result, but it's certainly not your typical OSS engineering centric featurefest. I would have to disagree with the thinking that Sugar fails because it does not communicates how to make things work Children learn best by exploring their world. regards -pauric . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://gamma.ixda.org/discuss?post=23928 *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
Re: [IxDA Discuss] OLPC: Sugar Not So Sweet?
Sugar is presented as a challenge to the children: decipher-me or give
up. You can see in the videos I posted when they discover something
new the first thing they do is to show up to their peers. Soon there
are some kids that explore more the possibilites of the systems and
serve the others with support.
It's clearly stated on the OLPC site that they do not offer tech support
because they hope users will become savvy enough with the XO to fix issues
on their own. I think this is ... well, insane. Including an app for writing
basic Python does not, by any means, ensure that the kids on the other end
of the OLPC initiative will ever understand it.
They are confident that their system will turn every child into
hackers. I cannot agree on that, but the system is clearly a hacker
artifact and as so, can stimulate hackering activities.
In this case, success is not a mean of technology adoption, but of
technology appropriation. If these people, in their culture and place
can appropriate this techonology to do something they find useful, so
it can be considered sucessful. Let users judge it.
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Re: [IxDA Discuss] OLPC: Sugar Not So Sweet?
On Dec 26, 2007, at 10:48 AM, Robert Hoekman, Jr. wrote: On another note, can I ask why you're exploring this, Dan? Are you collecting info for a paper or some other purpose, or are you just curious? I'm just curious. Adaptive Path bought us all one (two) for a holiday gift but they haven't arrived yet. And then there was those two negative posts from people whose opinions I respect that caught my eye. But a paper/post/detailed critique from this community (How to Improve the OLPC UI) would be valuable and a useful service. 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
Re: [IxDA Discuss] OLPC: Sugar Not So Sweet?
I couldn't agree more with pauric on this one. Most people I know who are leaders in technology, programming, and even a lot of designers, got their start with computers as children. When we got our first computer I was 7 and it was a c64. No instructions, no GUI.. just the BASIC language and a lot of curiosity. I hacked away at it until I figured it out, and I attribute a lot of my success to that early beginning. 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. On Wed, 26 Dec 2007 11:42:28, pauric [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: [snip] I'd like to think that there's a future generation of nerds, who like me, got their start supporting fixing their friend's computers. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CmYDgncMhXw Frankly, I think throwing kids in at the deep end of maker/hacker culture is a stroke of genius. [snip] Children learn best by exploring their world. regards -pauric -- 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
Re: [IxDA Discuss] OLPC: Sugar Not So Sweet?
Dan: And how about some heuristic evaluations from this community? The impression I get from the reviews you quoted is that on a scale of DOS to OS X, Sugar is a missed opportunity. I would say, wrong scale, it cant be measured by conventional standards. Of course there is no such thing as a perfect design but unless the IxDA sponsors some Ethnographic research in the depths of the Amazon I Think its a fools errand to judge the endeavor by western standards. If anything we should define a new set of heuristics as I'm having a lot of trouble applying any of 10 principles to the context of a dirt floor classroom of 50 kids, 1 teacher, where the only other piece of technology is a light switch (at best) http://www.useit.com/papers/heuristic/heuristic_list.html . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://gamma.ixda.org/discuss?post=23928 *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
Re: [IxDA Discuss] OLPC: Sugar Not So Sweet?
pauric [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I would have to disagree with the thinking that Sugar fails because it does not communicates how to make things work Children learn best by exploring their world. Please take what I'm about to say with a grain of salt, because I've not had the chance to actually play with an OLPC. I've two real life incidences to relay about my niece when she was a young'n; about 17 years ago. First was when I installed Kid Pix on my Mac, in anticipation of her visit. She was 3 yrs at the time. Because of age, I assumed she had no experience with Macs or any other computer. So I had every intention of getting the thing up and running, launching Kid Pix and showing her how to use it. She needed absolutely no help from me. She knew how to turn the computer on, locate the app (it wasn't iconified the desktop), launch it (double click, mind you) and get busy. Clearly, she'd been introduced to a Mac and that app before, but given her age, I was floored that she had no trouble. A few years later, I purchased and installed some kid's math application on a PC for her. She was 7 or 8 yrs. Once installation was complete and the app launched, we were presented with a display of cartoon characters positioned around a colorful room. I saw no menubar, no apparent icons, dialogs, message area nor any other items I would have taken queue from for next steps. I was a bit embarrassed not knowing how to continue. As I stepped away from the computer keyboard to search for the blasted users manual, my niece took control, studied the screen for a second then immediately started interacting, successfully, mind you, with the app; an app she'd never seen before. My big point of all this is I've learned to keep an extra wide open mind about what will work for kids. Does Sugar fail to communicate how things work? I suspect that like most computers, there's loads of room for improvement with Sugar, but it may not fail to the degree we experts think it fails. The primary target audience is almost a different species! :D (well they seem that way to me sometimes) desiree Desiree McCrorey UI Architect/Web Producer www.healthline.com desiredcreations.com Never miss a thing. Make Yahoo your home page. http://www.yahoo.com/r/hs *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
Re: [IxDA Discuss] OLPC: Sugar Not So Sweet?
On Dec 26, 2007, at 1:04 PM, pauric wrote: Dan: And how about some heuristic evaluations from this community? The impression I get from the reviews you quoted is that on a scale of DOS to OS X, Sugar is a missed opportunity. BTW, I never suggested we should use DOS/Windows/Mac/Whatever as the means of evaluation. Instead, we should do as Robert suggested and look to the universal principles of design, perhaps combined with some basic good interaction design characteristics, and evaluate using those. I would say, wrong scale, it cant be measured by conventional standards. Of course there is no such thing as a perfect design but unless the IxDA sponsors some Ethnographic research in the depths of the Amazon I Think its a fools errand to judge the endeavor by western standards. The counterargument is that it was designed by people in US with no input from any end-user or research whatsoever, to my knowledge. Why shouldn't we judge it by Western standards? Side discussion: I've heard argued is that there is no such thing anymore as Western and Eastern any longer. Not touching that one, although feel free, I'm interested! :) If anything we should define a new set of heuristics as I'm having a lot of trouble applying any of 10 principles to the context of a dirt floor classroom of 50 kids, 1 teacher, where the only other piece of technology is a light switch (at best) http://www.useit.com/papers/heuristic/heuristic_list.html This is an excellent idea. I know Nokia has done a lot of work in emerging markets. Perhaps that would be the right place to start. 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
Re: [IxDA Discuss] OLPC: Sugar Not So Sweet?
I'd like to think that there's a future generation of nerds, who like me, got their start supporting fixing their friend's computers. Oh, I'm sure there is, but is the goal here to create a generation of kids in developing countries who can hack a computer, or is to provide tools for educating themselves in a variety of other ways? I'm sure you're aware Alan Kay is a principal designer on the project although I dont know the extent of his involvement. From what I can tell, Alan Kay's name isn't typically followed by designer. Am I missing something? How does Alan Kay's experience make up for the apparent lack of quality interaction design? I would have to disagree with the thinking that Sugar fails because it does not communicates how to make things work Children learn best by exploring their world. I agree with this, but again, the goal shouldn't be to force these kids to dedicate all sorts of attention to the tool, but on the content to which the tool provides access. -r- *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
Re: [IxDA Discuss] OLPC: Sugar Not So Sweet?
Robert, I said however, spreadsheets dont engage kid's imaginations. and I'll take that back, I appreciate you're not talking about a UI interaction that suits the needs and desires of a developed country. However, I have little trouble imagining being 5 again and being given an XO. Could the UI design be better - undoubtedly. Would a finely tuned Sugar with web 2.0 corners and feedback at every corner made my wide eyed learning any more efficient in my Mongolian Yurt? questionable. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://gamma.ixda.org/discuss?post=23928 *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
