[IAEP] http://www-testing.sugarlabs.org/

[Carol Farlow Lerche]

I second Michael's suggestion about a web design that echoes the Sugar
design.  Think how useful this would be if carried to school servers.  And
as a basis for web-served Sugar-like activities.

I have to agree with the conclusion that the test design is off-putting.  It
is certainly not intelligible to children.  One of the foundations of the
Sugar interface is to make things iconic and simple and universal.  The
flood of words, most of them jargon, just doesn't work.

On Fri, Feb 27, 2009 at 11:46 AM, Michael Stone
<michael.r.stone at gmail.com>wrote:

> On Fri, Feb 27, 2009 at 11:56:52AM -0500, Benjamin M. Schwartz wrote:
> >David Farning wrote:
> >> Sorry there was a typo in my last email the site is actually
> >> http://www-testing.sugarlabs.org/
> >
> >I forcefully object to everything about this website.  It is ugly,
> >off-putting, unnavigable, unreadable, buggy, empty of any helpful
> >information, and in many other ways among the worst websites I could
> >possibly imagine for this purpose.  It is a very cool javascript tech
> >demo, which is not at all useful here.
> >
> >Meanwhile, the front page of the wiki is beautiful.  It presents the
> >visitor immediately with a statement explaining what Sugar is, and a bunch
> >of clearly named links to learn more about Sugar and Sugar Labs.
> >Scrolling down presents a wealth of introductory information about Sugar,
> >presented in a logical fashion.  It does all of this in a
> >non-headache-inducing color scheme, using complete sentences.  Clearly a
> >lot of work has been put into this, and it shows.
>
> Christian,
>
> I wish I felt differently, but I agree with pretty much everything Ben
> said. In
> fact, I found myself so put off by the new design that I left the site
> after
> reading no more than two entries. I was particularly frustrated by the
> meaningless colors, the dark -> light background transition, the useless
> sound
> bytes, and the invisible one-word menu that overlaps other text when I
> scroll.
>
> In more detail, this is not the Sugar design that I enjoy -- in Sugar:
>
>   * Colors denote individual identity and contribution; they aren't uniform
>     over a page and they aren't randomly regenerated on each visit.
>
>   * Contrast is used carefully: I would never see a black menu with yellow
> text
>     over a pure white background, nor a yellow menu with white text on a
> white
>     background. (Both of which I observed.)
>
>   * Text colors are never reversed for emphasis.
>
>   * Views are scoped and zoomable, and information is usually arranged in
>     visually pleasing layouts with gray-out filters or search; not
> organized
>     hierarchically.
>
>     (The exception is toolbars, which Eben redesigned in a fashion much
> more
>     consistent with Sugar's design imperatives:
>
>        http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Designs/Toolbars
>
>     )
>
>     (At any rate, contrast the hierarchy-free Neighborhood View and the
> Home
>     View with semi-hierarchical Journal or the (deeply hierarchical) source
>     code layout.)
>
>   * For better and for worse, icons are used everywhere in place of short
> text.
>     Short text is presented only on hover.
>
> Now, as an alternate suggestion: why not use the desire for a nicer website
> as an opportunity to test out our actual underlying UI design principles?
>
> For example, I'd love to see a Sugar front-page that used the Frame and its
> zoomable Views for navigation, perhaps organizing hierarchical content with
> Eben's Toolbar design.
>
> Regards,
>
> Michael
>
> P.S. - Just think of the educational opportunity that's slipping away by
> not
> dogfooding the existing design work. :)
> _______________________________________________
> IAEP -- It's An Education Project (not a laptop project!)
> IAEP at lists.sugarlabs.org
> http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep
>



-- 
"It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary
depends upon his not understanding it." -- Upton Sinclair
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