[IAEP] yet another corrected screenshot image!

Walter Bender walter.bender at gmail.com
Thu Mar 12 12:12:56 EDT 2009


I haven't studied it in any scientific way, but I have never seen
anyone use freeform in the field. I can also make a strong case for
its inappropriateness in the classroom and the additional support
overhead. For simplicity-sake, if for no other reason, we should drop
it.

That said, I cannot argue with your observation that an overloaded
ring is problematic as well. For 0.86, we should consider some of
spiral options, such as the sunflower, which are much more space
efficient. At the same time, I think the real answer lies in better
use the idea that groups of activities can be selected for the ring: a
teacher might say to the child, this week, I want everyone to put
Browse, Write, and Turrtle Art on their desktops. At home, a different
collection might be available. So maybe we can explore the notion of
collections rather than layouts?

-walter

On Wed, Mar 11, 2009 at 10:54 PM, Christian Marc Schmidt
<christianmarc at gmail.com> wrote:
> I fully understand your confusion, this issue has been going back and
> forth for too long.
>
> We should probably talk this over more thoroughly before deciding
> either way. Nicholas had (and I'm assuming still has) very strong
> reservations about the ring, which caused us to reconsider it, but at
> the time it was too late to change and it made it into the build. As
> you know I was initially in favor of the ring (which I think has a
> strong iconic presence), but when I began seeing screenshots of
> overloaded rings it seemed like the favorites model perhaps wasn't
> working as well as we had hoped.
>
> This is a case where it would really help to do observations and see
> how children are using the Home view, and which of the two views they
> prefer using... Or do we have any findings and observations we can
> already draw from?
>
> For now, the question remains which view (freeform/ring) we use to
> represent Sugar. Or perhaps at least in the interim it would make
> sense to avoid Home altogether and use the Neighborhood view as the
> "signature" shot?
>
> I agree that we would ideally keep either the ring or freeform, but
> not both, for simplicity...
>
> More discussion ahead, I sense.
>
>
> Christian
>
>
> On Wed, Mar 11, 2009 at 10:31 PM, Walter Bender <walter.bender at gmail.com> wrote:
>> On Wed, Mar 11, 2009 at 10:22 PM, Christian Marc Schmidt
>> <christianmarc at gmail.com> wrote:
>>> Hi Sean
>>>
>>>
>>> We are currently debating moving to freeform view as the default
>>> (maybe even the only) view in Home. To be on the safe side, should we
>>> use that view here instead, seeing as it already exists in the UI?
>>> CC'ing Walter for his thoughts as well...
>>>
>>
>> Boy am I ever confused. I thought (and hoped) that we were going to
>> get rid of the freeform view, not the ring view.
>>
>> -walter
>>
>> --
>> Walter Bender
>> Sugar Labs
>> http://www.sugarlabs.org
>>
>
>
>
> --
> anything at christianmarcschmidt.com
>
> http://www.christianmarcschmidt.com
>
> 917/ 575 0013
>



-- 
Walter Bender
Sugar Labs
http://www.sugarlabs.org


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