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OLPC's UI To Be Kid-Tested In February
Posted by
kdawson
on Mon Jan 01, 2007 01:38 PM
from the nice-day-in-the-neighborhood dept.
from the nice-day-in-the-neighborhood dept.
dfoulger writes "The AP is reporting that kid testing of Negroponte's '$100 Laptop' starts in February. This article is some of the first mainstream coverage of just how different the user interface of the XO Computer is — it ditches the traditional office metaphors in favor of a 'neighborhood' and an activity-based journaling approach. Video of Sugar, as the UI is called, has been out on the net for a while, and Popular Science recently gave the color / monochrome display a 'Grand Award' in its 2006 technology roundup. What do you think of this new UI?"
Related Stories
[+]
OLPC Project Interface Revealed 196 comments
BogusToo writes to mention an EE Times article describing the interface for the OLPC project laptop. Using some fairly intuitive UI concepts (like simplified web browsers and a chat client), the Linux-based system attempts to do away with the kludgey parts of computer use. A video demo of the interface has been placed on YouTube. From the article: "Earlier postings around the Internet have also shown how the physical design of the laptop has changed, including the elimination of the much touted on-board hand crank that was supposed to power the cheap, lime green laptop. It's still there, reportedly, but has now been moved to the power adapter. The OLPC's produced earlier this week in Shanghai still need to go through loads of testing, such as knocking them off desks and dropping them in mud, as kids are wont to do. They may also be kicked around, like soccer balls, a popular sport in 99.9 percent of the world."
[+]
Technology: A Close(r) Look At OLPC Human Interface Guidelines 152 comments
feranick writes "There have been a lot of articles on Slashdot about the OLPC project, most of
them regarding the hardware, the social impact or the cost of the
operation itself. However the software development,
specifically in the GUI didn't get so far much attention. This
blog summarizes some of the OLPC
global interface guidelines. You will see that what is really
new in the laptop is not the laptop itself, but the completely new idea
behind the design, where instead of applications you have activities,
documents are now journals,
'application bundles can be signed by
whoever works on them — because
there is a view source key on the keyboard,
anybody can modify an app
and distribute it'. It really looks like if this is successfully, we
could see a new breakthrough in GUI design also in mainstream PCs: "This
UI is quite simply one of the deepest and most interesting redesigns of
the desktop user interface ever produced. It makes MacOS look like what
it is — boring and unoriginal.""
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URL Bar (Score:4, Interesting)
Why is there no URL bar? It explains there isn't one but why not? Seems a bit of a problem for visiting specific sites as you'd have to use Google for everything it seems.
Monkeyboi
Re:URL Bar (Score:5, Informative)
Too bad the video does not show it, it actually misleads a lot of people in thinking the same way you did
Parent
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Maybe you're too young to remember a world before Microsoft Windows (TM), but at my advanced age I can recall many people meeting Windows for the first time as an adult (actually, using a computer for the first time as an adult, as I did) and getting by in a few days. Typing is the main "computer skill" in general
Not blown away (Score:3, Interesting)
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Well, clearly the OLPC folks didn't make that mistake. They have a small number of large icons.
The OLPC approach makes a few functions very discoverable, with the tradeoff that the user will need to go to a dialog to do more tasks. For example, on my word processor I can make a bulleted list with one c
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The size of the code wasn't the reason for using interpreted code; the important thing is that the kids can look at it and see how it works.
What do you think of this new UI? (Score:4, Funny)
Not sure about that UI... (Score:5, Insightful)
The UI they have created (see video) seems like a strange choice, however. It is a very simple and seemingly restrictive interface. It appears childish and maybe even somewhat insulting to the user. I thought that the OLPC was supposed to specifically encourage children to (1) truly learn how to use computers (not merely use them as applicances), and (2) encourage them to tinker/modify the system.
With regard to (1) it should be clear that providing a contrived UI specifically tailored to 'kid tasks' may be useful for the first week, but ultimately is a disservice to the children, as they are not learning about the true power and beauty of computers. They are not learning about modern computer capabilities or conventions if they are stuck in a primitive UI.
With regard to (2), my understanding was that Linux was chosen as the OS specifically because it allows for the students to modify, tinker, extent, and customize. The idea was that (unlike with a proprietary OS), they would be able to learn about the inner functions of computers and become truly interested and skilled with computer work. A simplistic UI that hides the true behind-the-scenes working of the computer hardly accomplishes this goal.
I may be mistaken about the UI. Perhaps what we see in the demonstration is an introductory UI that will be used by very young students (with a more normal GUI and system behind the scenes?
Kids are very smart... and I believe they would have little trouble dealing with a modern, full-featured UI and OS. So why the simplistic interface?
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``I thought that the OLPC was supposed to specifically encourage children to (1) truly learn how to use computers''
Yes, but who's to say that's not what's happening? The UI paradigm expressed by OLPC may be different from the desktop metaphor of Windows and OS X, but that makes it no less real. The OLPC computer is also a different b
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My daughter is 7. From time to time, I let her use my PC (other times, I can't stop her...). In XP Pro, she's figured out how to:
* Log on using her mother's account (the password is trivial, it's her name)
* Change her display picture
* Change the password
* Fire up Firefox and surf to a couple of her favourite sites (others she has to ask for help)
* Send voice clips using Live Messenger
She worke
One week (Score:2)
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-ch
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First off, I'm a big supporter of the OLPC project. I think it's a fantastic idea that will do alot of good.
The UI they have created (see video) seems like a strange choice, however. It is a very simple and seemingly restrictive interface. It appears childish and maybe even somewhat insulting to the user.
Actually I was quite impressed by the interface. Note that these computers are being put in environments where it's quite possible that there is no one has ever used a computer before. With no one to show them the ropes it's essential that the interface be as simple as possible otherwise the teacher may just decide not to use them.
I thought that the OLPC was supposed to specifically encourage children to (1) truly learn how to use computers (not merely use them as applicances), and (2) encourage them to tinker/modify the system.
... accessible to students if they have the desire/skill to use it?). Hopefully that simple UI can be switched to a 'real' UI and this will be done for all but the youngest students.
With regard to (1) it should be clear that providing a contrived UI specifically tailored to 'kid tasks' may be useful for the first week, but ultimately is a disservice to the children, as they are not learning about the true power and beauty of computers. They are not learning about modern computer capabilities or conventions if they are stuck in a primitive UI.
With regard to (2), my understanding was that Linux was chosen as the OS specifically because it allows for the students to modify, tinker, extent, and customize. The idea was that (unlike with a proprietary OS), they would be able to learn about the inner functions of computers and become truly interested and skilled with computer work. A simplistic UI that hides the true behind-the-scenes working of the computer hardly accomplishes this goal.
I may be mistaken about the UI. Perhaps what we see in the demonstration is an introductory UI that will be used by very young students (with a more normal GUI and system behind the scenes?
Kids are very smart... and I believe they would have little trouble dealing with a modern, full-featured UI and OS. So why the simplistic interface?
The demo didn't address this but I'm sure there is a way they can customize the system and start tinkering around. However, note that they don't exactly have skilled Linux users
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Some issues I found while using it.
Battery Seating Issues, some problems with startup and poor compatibility with 802.11b/g routers. The Keyboard is pretty uncomfortable, they might need to spend a bit of time working on it. The three mouse buttons don't work particularly well...
It's surprisingly responsive and fast (Probably the flash disk) and lots of fun, it's quite heavy.
My buddy got one, he's
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Wrong focus (Score:5, Interesting)
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You do realise that these are _for_ the children, right?
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Icon Collision? (Score:2, Interesting)
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Circle+X in a circle = Home / kid splat
X in a circle = Close/end task
X-with-arrows in a circle = Move
I din't like having to depend on mouseovers to figure out which symbol I'm looking at each time
KPT, anyone? (Score:2)
Review (Score:4, Funny)
I guess this is pretty typical of how computers work. Throw 'em in the water, they'll learn to swim. Hopefully somebody was taught how to use ps, grep, and kill.
Test after building? (Score:2)
Surely the concepts have been tested and designed with kids beforehand and especially while building it?
Kids are great to design together with, especially as they don't attempt to hide their dislikes or disorientation in a UI as much as adults tend to. And they can come up with really cool ideas, out of the blue.
Etoys (Score:3, Interesting)
Experiences porting software to the OLPC (Score:5, Informative)
I just received one of the OLPC beta test laptops, and I've played around with it and started porting some X11 software to run on it.
The hardware is very nicely designed, and has a cool, unique look and feel, although it's in the very early stages and still has some rough edges and unfinished pieces.
The touch pad doesn't currently work very well, due to a combination of hardware and software problems: the cursor jumps around and stalls, and the left and right sides (for writing with a stylus) are not currently active. But a USB mouse works just fine. The keyboard is hard for me to use because it's so tiny, but it's good for kids because it's simple and spill proof, and only requires a light touch.
The screen turns around and folds over so you can use it in "book mode" without the keyboard or touch pad. The game controller buttons (and camera and microphone) on the screen are usable when it's in book mode. The round four-direction joystick pad and the triangle/square/circle/x game pad seem to send the same arrow key escape codes, and don't auto-repeat, but I think that's a matter of software that will be addressed in the future.
The camera is on the right edge of the screen, and doesn't turn inwards, so your face appears at the edge of the screen instead of being centered. It would be nice for the camera to be centered at the top edge of the screen, but currently there is no any room for that, and it would require a redesign of the case. The directional pad sticks down sometimes when you rock it to the left, but I trust that and other problems will be shaken out in future versions of the hardware.
There is an SD card reader hidden on the bottom on the screen, but no disk drives showed up when I typed "df" after I inserted an SD card, and the spring loaded ejector didn't work so I had to pull it out with my fingernails. Again, I expect this kind of software and hardware stuff to be fixed in later versions -- that's why they're doing this beta test: to shake out problems like that.
The antennas are very cute, and give it an anthropomorphic look like a puppy dog's ears, that I think kids will dig. (Somebody's got to port XEyes, XNose and XMouth to OLCP so it has a face, to complete the look!) It took me a minute or so to figure out that they also function as latches to allow the screen to be opened. I was excited to open the screen the first time I saw it, but I was careful because didn't want to hurt it -- however, kids might break something by trying to pry the screen open before they figure out you have to rotate both antennas to unlatch the screen. I'm afraid that they might get broken off easily, and they're kind of clumsy when then laptop is in "book mode", if you don't tuck them in by opening the screen a bit so they will rotate around to their closed position. They don't latch the screen closed over the keyboard in book mode. When in laptop mode, the screen does not fold back as far as would be convenient. If you want to use a USB mouse or other USB device, external microphone or headphones, you must open up one or both of the antennae, which makes it more possible that they might get broken off.
The screen is amazing. It's quite small, but extremely high resolution (200 dots per inch). The application I'm porting was designed for a large workstation screen, and it comes up with the text and graphics looking very tiny, but quite sharp. By default the display runs in 16 bit mode, at a resolution of 1200 x 900 (201x201 dots per inch resolution according to xdpyinfo). The supported depths are 16, 1, 4, 8, 15, 24 and 32.
There are buttons on the keyboard that switch the display between color and monochrome mode, and control the brightness. The monochrome mode is handled by hardware -- the X server still thinks it's in 16 bit color mode, and the colors are translated to gray scales. However some of the monochrome gray levels show up as weird colors or diagonal cross hatching, unless the brightness is turned all the way down.
Anywhere it
In what way is the interface easy? (Score:3, Interesting)
Even if you figure out what those buttons do, the interface is very tedious. The only way to switch "activities" is to move your cursor to the side, wait, click a little, unlabeled button, and click another unlabeled, ambiguous button. In other systems you just click the (I'll admit, likely unlabeled) button on the taskbar/dock. It might seem like I'm complaining over nothing, but trying to, say, take notes off a web page in abiword would take much longer than with with a book, paper, and pencil, even assuming the person using it could type (unlikely).
How is this easier than GNOME, KDE, Aqua, XFCE, or even Windows?
Re:How about reading and writing? (Score:4, Insightful)
And then, after that? Wouldn't it be nice if they could use their reading and writing skills to enter the global information highway? Get access to the wealth of information on the web? Share their own stories and content?
There seems to be a misconception that countries in which computers aren't widespread also don't have high literacy. This is not true. Libya, one of the countries that signed up for OLPC has very high literacy; in fact, many Libyans have higher education. From what I'm told, Russia is another country with near-universal literacy, but without universal access to computers. I bet there are others.
Parent
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
Argentina, one of the other countries which signed for a million OLPCs, has a 97.1% literacy rate, according to the CIA World Factbook [cia.gov]:
but only 1/3rd of the population has internet access
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The extent of literacy is more important.
There, access to reading materials is important. For many countries, a town full of $200 laptops would be cheaper than building and maintaining a library with any significant amount of reading material.
That's were the 3R people are missing the point. A low cost c
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And Myspace isn't a valuable site that inspires millions? It may not be your or my cup of tea, but that doesn't mean it has no value. Besides, just because folks are using Myspace doesn't mean they aren't using the rest.
Re:How about reading and writing? (Score:4, Interesting)
Parent
Re:How about reading and writing? (Score:4, Interesting)
Parent
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Correlation does not equal causation.
Re:How about reading and writing? (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:How about reading and writing? (Score:4, Interesting)
Maybe I'm just a fundamentalist, but children first need to learn basic skills like reading and writing.
And why does parent post think this excludes learning with a computer?
My daughter enjoyed programs I wrote in Applesoft on an Apple ][ that helped her learn her alphabet and basic counting when she was 3 and 4 years old. She was reading before she entered first grade.
Certainly the most critical part of it was her mother schooling her. But she also has vivid and pleasant memories of playing with that old Apple. The computer was of definite value to her as part of a broad learning experience.
There can be no question that the OLPC computers will be an incredibly valuable adjunct in teaching kids the basic skills of literacy, and of how to learn.
Parent
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You seem to think that a child is incapable of learning multiple things as they develop.
And what exactly is wrong with the Montessori approach to education? Especially if the children are very young? Do you even know the philosophy behind Montessori education? Look it up on Wikipedia. Here's an excerpt:
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Looks to me, this thing will be great making kids interrested in reading more. I can just see everybody learning to use wikipedia at a young age to look things up. We definitly did not have that opportunity when I was in school.
Sure, I could have gone to the library and looked something up. But having it instantly available is totally different.
It should also be a gr
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It is easy to waste a lot of time on gadgets when what you really need is quality time learning the multiplication table and working on reading comprehension. Those kinds of things are best done with pencil and paper.
Are you sure? Reading comprehension can be improved if you have access to a large library of eBooks, and an on-board dictionary; click on any word you don't know in the eBook, and get a definition of it. If that's all it takes, most children would probably click and then they learn something. If they have to go and find a paper dictionary and look up a word in it then they wouldn't bother.
As for multiplication tables, I think it would be easier to learn them if the computer could perform testing (i.e.
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Crap.
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I'd be more than happy to...but i need to get a file i can play. How do I do that?
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Thankfully ... [Wow, 20 years back in time] (Score:2)
In some 2006 in some other alternate universe, that is.
*shaking head*
The reality disconnect here gets pretty bad at times.