Re: [IxDA Discuss] OLPC: Sugar Not So Sweet?

I've been playing with the OLPC XO for a couple of weeks and understand some of the criticism being at it in this thread. However, I think it's definitely a system that invites exploration and experimentation. The Tam Tam music apps are pretty fun, and if you've got more than one, the mesh networ

Re: [IxDA Discuss] OLPC: Sugar Not So Sweet?

(Reposted from an offlist response to Pauric. I accidentally left off the IxDA email.) A purely academic approach > focusing on the content layer will not address the needs of the do-ers > among us who understand through taking tools apart to see how they > work; I'm just not so convinced that l

Re: [IxDA Discuss] OLPC: Sugar not so Sweet?

For a taste of Sugar: * install it on your own machine (win/linux/mac/etc) * build it (preferable) or run in emulation * find + report bugs * see goodies that need design help, and * participate in the Sugar community. But the laptop is the wrong discussion. The cell-top is THE platform. 2.2 bill

Re: [IxDA Discuss] OLPC: Sugar not so Sweet?

Sorry, great correction ... It does require more than one child with many cameras. ;) my main point was let's get a study going on the observational level, and not rely on heuristics. I've never been a fan of them anyway. -- dave On Dec 27, 2007 11:55 AM, Alan Wexelblat <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrot

Re: [IxDA Discuss] OLPC: Sugar not so Sweet?

On Dec 27, 2007 8:18 AM, David Malouf <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > I would love to see someone who has the device slap it down in front of > their kids (if they have any) don't tell them a thing and see what happens > over the course of days and weeks and video tape the whole thing. There is > the

Re: [IxDA Discuss] OLPC: Sugar Not So Sweet?

I'm wondering if I'm the only one on this list who got an OLPC for his kid and is just letting the kid go with it? Context: my kid is seven, and definitely above average in conventional intelligence, reading/literacy metrics, and is reasonably well experienced with conventional PCs, including both

Re: [IxDA Discuss] OLPC: Sugar not so Sweet?

This sounds so much like the Nature vs. Nurture debate that one might as well state it up front to stave off a lot of discharged steam. Practically every discipline centered around people (psychology, sociology, economics, anthropology, medicine, etc.) has engaged (and will continue to engage) in

Re: [IxDA Discuss] OLPC: Sugar Not So Sweet?

Yes, exactly. Sorry if my original post was a little confusing, this is the point I was trying to communicate. :) On Dec 27, 2007 2:12 AM, Sebi Tauciuc <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > You are right. Of course, we should also keep in mind that enabling and > encouraging hacking is one thing, forcin

Re: [IxDA Discuss] OLPC: Sugar not so Sweet?

hmmm? I actually don't agree. why? b/c few if any of these laws came out of research on young people. They are all tests done on adults that have gone through the same level of socialization. And if my reading is correct all of these laws are based on research only done in specific western industri

Re: [IxDA Discuss] OLPC: Sugar not so Sweet?

On Dec 27, 2007, at 5:18 AM, David Malouf wrote: > We don't have equal access to the tool, nor are we quite frankly > qualified > to truly give a heuristic analysis because in my mind our most > standard > heuristics of HCI don't necessarily apply the same way here. This begs the question: a

Re: [IxDA Discuss] OLPC: Sugar not so Sweet?

I would like to make a suggestion for this thread, as I see it facing some unnecessary poles, as I see the posters and all of them are equally interested in good interaction design and more importantly successful product design. We don't have equal access to the tool, nor are we quite frankly qual

Re: [IxDA Discuss] OLPC: Sugar Not So Sweet?

You are right. Of course, we should also keep in mind that enabling and encouraging hacking is one thing, forcing it on all users of a system in order to achieve basic tasks is another. (I'm not saying this system is doing that - I just understood from the discussion so far that there might be a ri

Re: [IxDA Discuss] OLPC: Sugar Not So Sweet?

I'm not saying we should give anybody substandard equipment, I don't necessarily think Sugar is substandard (i haven't had enough time to fully evaluate it yet). All I'm saying, like pauric, is that sometimes things that seem unintuitive to adults (or at least adults already familiar with a specif

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 U

Re: [IxDA Discuss] OLPC: Sugar Not So Sweet?

Robert: "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" I see this missing support mechanism as a challenge turned in to an opportunity. I agree with your risk assessment and maybe have a more optimis

Re: [IxDA Discuss] OLPC: Sugar Not So Sweet?

> 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/heur

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 educ

Re: [IxDA Discuss] OLPC: Sugar Not So Sweet?

On Dec 26, 2007, at 12:34 PM, Matthew Nish-Lapidus wrote: > 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 her

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

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 t

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 p

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 l

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

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 reco

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

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 s

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

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

[IxDA Discuss] OLPC: Sugar Not So Sweet?

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: