The OLPC's interface is simply way too complicated. I just read through the human interface guidelines for the project; and by god, I got lost after only a few paragraphs. How are kids supposed to learn all this? Read on for my thoughts.
To read all comments associated with this story, please click here.
Member since:2005-08-11
That's a silly position to take, as the children who end up using these laptops will be trained in an entirely different UI then the reast of the world, and then when they get older, and less flexible, they may have problems adadpting to the way everybody else does things
Member since:2005-06-29
Yea, it's totally stupid. Just cause these kids are poor doesn't make them stupid.
This is exactly what I was afraid OLPC would have been if it'd run on Windows: A crippled platform that only allows people to learn its own paradigms and not useful things in using other software (the software of the future).
If you give the kids a box, some cds, and reading material in their language they'll figure it out. They're not stupid. Heck, they might even do it without the reading materials if you explain typing and that the cd contains information for the computer to use.
Member since:2005-07-26
That's a silly position to take, as the children who end up using these laptops will be trained in an entirely different UI then the reast of the world, and then when they get older, and less flexible, they may have problems adadpting to the way everybody else does things
If the point of these units was to teach kids to use Windows, I would agree with you. In fact, the purpose of computers in schools (my kids vary in age from preschool to middle school) is not to teach them to use "computers", but to teach them. Period.
Computers are a tool to learn other concepts. These should be easy for the kids to use in the environment they will be using. And it looks like they are relying on the peer-to-peer "mesh" network to collaborate and share learning experience in the classroom. A traditional "desktop" metaphor is clumsy at that. Well, certainly more clumsy than this UI seems to be. Sugar seems to be (besides very different for our older [fossilized?] brains) well-suited for a collaborative learning experience of the mesh network. Kids are grouped by friends (learning partners) and by task (assignment).
Just because it is very different, and the technical description makes my brain think about this in unfamiliar (hence, uncomfortable) ways does not mean that this is a "bad" UI.
Different paradigms require different solutions.
Edited for incorrect closing of formatting tools. Oops.
Edited 2006-11-28 18:04
Member since:
2006-10-11
"Why do things the hard way when they can be done just as effectively the easy way?"
Nah, we won't try something new. We'll cop out and use an existing paradigm that isn't necessarily as well suited as a teaching aid instead. Yeah!