Marco Pesenti Gritti wrote:
I find it hard to avoid this entirely. For instance, imagine we have
a flashcard activity (not too much of a stretch). It seems like an
obvious implementation to put flashcard data on the web somewhere, as
type application/xml+x-flashcard (or whatever), and then import the
data when that data type is encountered through a browser.
What is a flashcard activity? This is *way* too abstract. Activity is
not a synonymous for application (our fault we are totally failing to
communicate this). But even using the more generic application term...
what is a flashcard application?
A quiz-like system, e.g.:
http://www.quisition.com/demos/short-term/short-term.html -- someone
happened to bring it up on IRC, so it was in my head.
Building a good user interface is not putting nice pictures on the top
of a prebuilt system. It's a top-down process where the final goal is
clearly defined by the user experience design. Usefulness and merits of
the architecture are not abstract technical values but are evaluated on
the base of this final goal.
Perhaps this is a function of our different backgrounds. To me issues
of content management and basic persistence seem pretty concrete,
because that's a lot of what I work with. It's also my belief that the
content will ultimately be a greater investment than the software, and
that the content has to outlive any particular software associated with
it. I'm not an obsessive archivalist, and I don't think that's
necessary for this project (especially for content just on the laptop
that isn't hosted somewhere else). But I do think we need to consider
content quite seriously as its own entity, because we're managing it on
behalf of the child, it's not ours.
And I feel really quite strongly that content belongs to the user, not
the activity. That means that when possible the content should have a
purpose and meaning outside of the activity that created it. Even for
the most obscure or niche activity this applies, because someone might
fork that activity and still understand its obscure internal format.
This is not based on goals of "it should work in 30 seconds" but rather
"it should work in two years".
So I feel protective of content, and you feel protective of user
experience, and that means we'll probably be coming at this from
different perspectives, and I don't know if either one will entirely
drive the other.
--
Ian Bicking | [EMAIL PROTECTED] | http://blog.ianbicking.org
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