Sugar Labs - User contributions [en]

Talk:Design Team/Proposals

2012-09-07T01:57:45Z

David Brown: /* Proposal for "OUI" :- an Obvious User Interface */

== Proposal for "OUI" :- an Obvious User Interface ==

(to avoid repetition, unsigned contributions are either anonymous or by --[[User:David Brown|David Brown]] 22:32, 21 August 2012 (EDT))

'''Rationale'''

sugar was conceived by http://new.pentagram.com/2006/12/new-work-one-laptop-per-child/

"We definitely need the ‘tips and tricks’ section for the XO Guide." -
http://blog.laptop.org/best-of-olpc-feedback-a-compilation-of-compelling-comments/

A description of a new interface design is here:
https://sites.google.com/site/djhbrown2/oui.pdf

It is aimed to be more obvious and hence easier to use than sugar, whilst providing seamless access to all functionality.

Talk:Sugar Network/Tutorial

2012-09-01T10:41:44Z

David Brown: Blanked the page

Talk:Design Team/Proposals

2012-09-01T03:20:16Z

David Brown: /* Proposal for "kidie" :- a kid-oriented intuitive interface to an educational environment */

== Proposal for "OUI" :- an Obvious User Interface ==

(to avoid repetition, unsigned contributions are either anonymous or by --[[User:David Brown|David Brown]] 22:32, 21 August 2012 (EDT))

'''Rationale'''

sugar was conceived by http://new.pentagram.com/2006/12/new-work-one-laptop-per-child/

"We definitely need the ‘tips and tricks’ section for the XO Guide." -
http://blog.laptop.org/best-of-olpc-feedback-a-compilation-of-compelling-comments/

A description of a prototype OUI is in preparation. Its principal design principle is that it be simpler, more obvious than sugar, and have the flattest possible learning curve whilst providing seamless access to all functionality.

Talk:Sugar Network/Tutorial

2012-08-24T02:35:51Z

David Brown: Created page with "perhaps this might be a good place for dialogue about sugar network ui design? if so, here are some suggestions: have 3 completely different interfaces - one for users (kids..."

perhaps this might be a good place for dialogue about sugar network ui design?

if so, here are some suggestions:

have 3 completely different interfaces
- one for users (kids)
- one for teachers
- one for engineers (who set up proxies and etc); where an engineer is unavailable, a teacher will have to learn how to do it, but the last thing you want is to let kids into the sweetshop of the underneath and mess up setup things and break the machine

kid user interface:

the Home Page has icons coming out of its ears... i could only remember where on a circle is the thing i found last time, i wouldnt recognise its symbol until i had used it sucessfully several times... so i think the notion of a kid icon in the middle surrounded by app icons was not such a great idea back in 2006

the neighbourhood page looks like a swarm of bees... compare it to a facebook home page, where photos of friends can be seen

so, recommendations:
1. have categories of activity; no more than 7 different things on the screen at any one time ... George Miller's famous "magic number 7" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Magical_Number_Seven,_Plus_or_Minus_Two
2. have photo thumbnails of friends in neighbourhood view instead of abstract oxes
--[[User:David Brown|David Brown]] 22:35, 23 August 2012 (EDT)

Design Team/Contacts

2012-08-23T01:37:32Z

David Brown: /* Team Members */

<noinclude>{{TeamHeader|Design Team|roadmap_link=Design Team/Vision|roadmap_label=Vision}}[[Category:Design Team]][[Category:Contact]]
</noinclude>

== Coordinators ==
{{:Design Team/Coordinator}}

== IRC channel ==
Sugar designers (and developers) hang out in the [irc://irc.freenode.net/sugar #sugar] channel on irc.freenode.net.

== Team Members ==
Please add yourself to the list if you're interested in participating!

*[[User:Walter | Walter Bender]]
*[[User:MartinDengler | Martin Dengler]]
*[[User:Eben | Eben Eliason]]
*[[User:FGrose | Frederick Grose]]
*[[User:sascha_silbe | Sascha Silbe]]
*[[User:Walter | Fadi Tash]]
*[[User:Josh | Josh Williams]]
--[[User:David Brown|David Brown]] 21:37, 22 August 2012 (EDT)

Talk:Design Team/Proposals

2012-08-22T04:46:31Z

David Brown: /* Proposal for "kidie" :- a kid-oriented intuitive interface to an educational environment */

== Proposal for "kidie" :- a kid-oriented intuitive interface to an educational environment ==

(to avoid repetition, unsigned contributions are either anonymous or by --[[User:David Brown|David Brown]] 22:32, 21 August 2012 (EDT))

'''Rationale'''

sugar, conceived by http://new.pentagram.com/2006/12/new-work-one-laptop-per-child/ provides access to functionality via a myriad of cryptic icons. Once established in the mind of a user, icons are powerful: the 26 letters of the Roman alphabet, for example, are powerful carriers of information.
But to become a user of that alphabet, you first have to learn it.

"We definitely need the ‘tips and tricks’ section for the XO Guide." -
http://blog.laptop.org/best-of-olpc-feedback-a-compilation-of-compelling-comments/

kidie's principal design requirement is that it be simpler, more obvious than sugar, and have the flattest possible learning curve whilst providing seamless access to all the functionality of sugar and sugar network and dextrose and toast and and and...!

kidie is a conceptual design; whether it will ever translate into an implementation will depend on you.

'''Clean Sheet, Square One, Back to Basics'''

on opening an xo:

i would like it to audibly say "Hello" in a language of my choice - i would like to be able to choose that language (from a list) (with the help of a literate friend if necessary). thereafter, kidie will write/speak in that language.

- please add your own idea here -

imagine you are a kid.... what would you like to do with a little magic box called an xo?:

- either, continue an activity from where you left off. the startpage would contain a journal button to pull up a list of all the activities in progress (as a scrollable circular list of thumbnails), plus activity category buttons to start new activities. herein, an "activity" is an app+documents created by the kid (or kidgroup) with that app; chats are activities too.
- or, begin a new activity

new activity category doors:

- play a game
- learn something
- make something
- meet friends
- find new friends
- see what other people are doing
- roam around the virtual environment
- add your suggestion here

doors would be semiotic thumbnails; pointing at a door triggers an audible one-word message (in language of choice) as to what is behind that door. sound-effect can be optionally turned off.

suppose you push open the door called meet. what would you like to see? how about an album of photos of all your xo friends who are currently also online/onlan? pushing your cursor onto one of them, a window on their current activity opens with a chat subwindow underneath. these days, we have high-res, high enough that my friends could be indicated to me by thumbnail-sized photos, so i could see over a dozen of them on my screen at the same time. and if my album were shown to me as an imaginary "rounded square" circular list (viewed edge-on), i could spin it and bring the other photos around the back to the front. it would help me if the photos were in alphabetic order of first name.

if a kid could see what other people in her neighbourhood are doing it would be interesting to her. eg suppose you want to make a toy sailing boat... unless you were the kind of person that insists on reinventing the wheel, you might like to look around to see who has done that or is doing it too. you would want to Searchfor <freetext statement of interest> - the search engine would match that against neighbourhood-wide activities and their cloud documents (if there were a cloud)

'''*comments and **responses'''

* These all seem worthy for further consideration and experimentation. The mass demand for touch and inertial interfaces is already producing easier computing. Perhaps there are some iPad or Android apps or app development environments that would allow more folks to mock up or create new, user inspired tools. (The XO 1.75 has an accelerometer and newer versions will have touch screens.)
* Many Sugar Activity instances already resume with the state automatically saved at the time of exit (depending on the developer's design--try Physics, for example).
* Children are frequently asked (or try for themselves) to do things that they don't understand. This seems a natural way of learning. --[[User:FGrose|FGrose]] 03:11, 14 August 2012 (EDT)
** Yes, children of all ages, myself included, try to do things that are new to us, and sometimes find ways of doing them, often ways that their designer never imagined. and we sometimes instead fall down or injure/defeat ourselves with tools when we use them in a way that the designer did not intend.

* doors and wheels seems retrogressive, hiding functionality to simplify user choices, and making them harder to discover.
**doors don't conceal functionality, but instead provide obvious paths to categories of activities, instead of trying to show everything all at once on one small screen. i feel sure a design could be worked out that would work equally well with mouse and keyboard as well as touch screens and finger-sliding.

Talk:Design Team/Proposals

2012-08-22T02:12:26Z

David Brown: /* Proposal for "kidie" - a "kid-oriented intuitive user environment */

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Talk:Design Team/Proposals

2012-08-21T23:15:28Z