Changes

====Usability====

====Usability====

OLPC places an emphasis on discoverability and usability due to our [[OLPC_Human_Interface_Guidelines/Design Fundamentals#Know_Your_Audience|target audience]]. Usability has everything to do with the actual behavior of the activities, the layout of the buttons and tools, and the feedback that the interface provides to the children when they interact with it.  Ultimately, the design decisions that make your activities usable will depend greatly on the type of activity you are developing, and it will be up to you to consider carefully the kinds of interactions that the children will expect when presented with it. As a general rule, if the interface provided does what the child expects it to, you are off to a good start.  However, since it is quite difficult to know what they will expect—and in practice not all children will expect the same things—there is no substitute for user testing.

OLPC places an emphasis on discoverability and usability due to our [[DesignTeam/Human_Interface_Guidelines/Design Fundamentals#Know_Your_Audience|target audience]]. Usability has everything to do with the actual behavior of the activities, the layout of the buttons and tools, and the feedback that the interface provides to the children when they interact with it.  Ultimately, the design decisions that make your activities usable will depend greatly on the type of activity you are developing, and it will be up to you to consider carefully the kinds of interactions that the children will expect when presented with it. As a general rule, if the interface provided does what the child expects it to, you are off to a good start.  However, since it is quite difficult to know what they will expect—and in practice not all children will expect the same things—there is no substitute for user testing.

====Simplicity====

====Simplicity====

====Transparency====

====Transparency====

OLPC also hopes to encourage the children using the laptops to explore the technology under the surface.  Towards this end, a [[OLPC_Human_Interface_Guidelines/The Laptop Experience/View Source|view source]] key has been added to the laptop keyboards, providing them with instant access to the code that enables the activities that they use from day to day.  This key will allow those interested to peel away layers of abstraction, digging deeper into the codebase as they learn.

OLPC also hopes to encourage the children using the laptops to explore the technology under the surface.  Towards this end, a [[DesignTeam/Human_Interface_Guidelines/The Laptop Experience/View Source|view source]] key has been added to the laptop keyboards, providing them with instant access to the code that enables the activities that they use from day to day.  This key will allow those interested to peel away layers of abstraction, digging deeper into the codebase as they learn.

To enable such layered exploration, OLPC has written much of what can be in [[Python]], a scripting language, to enable children to view the source code.  This means, aside from general good practice, code should be both readable and well commented.  The [http://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-0008/ PEP 8] style guidelines for Python provide an excellent resource, and OLPC recommends that developers follow the practices laid out therein unless a compelling reason exists not to do so.

To enable such layered exploration, OLPC has written much of what can be in [[Python]], a scripting language, to enable children to view the source code.  This means, aside from general good practice, code should be both readable and well commented.  The [http://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-0008/ PEP 8] style guidelines for Python provide an excellent resource, and OLPC recommends that developers follow the practices laid out therein unless a compelling reason exists not to do so.