[IAEP] GPA Report - Feedback on using the Journal - Stopping and Start New issues

[Caroline Meeks]

hi Gary,
Start New is not working in the field. I can be standing behind a child
coaching them on every move of the mouse and I still can't get them to use
it.  The impulse to click on what the icon for what  they want to do is too
strong.  It takes too long to get to the drop down. The drop down is not
clear and if you think about its a quite complex mental model to understand
what is going on and what Start New is.  I literally can not get it to
happen in the field.

Also in this use case we did not use Stop because we did not want to Stop!
The kids desperately wanted to continue playing with Turtle Art, they just
had to save and write about their assigned work.  Clicking Stop when you
want to keep using an application is very counter intuitive.  And these kids
didn't just want to keep using Turtle Art they really really wanted to. The
kid next to them was already doing cool things.  It literally would have
been a battle for me to tell them they had to Stop.

Also it takes quite a while to start up an activity on an old computer. Who
wants to wait? Certainly not a 10 year old!

On Fri, Oct 9, 2009 at 9:38 AM, Gary C Martin <gary at garycmartin.com> wrote:

> Hi Caroline,
>
> On 9 Oct 2009, at 02:42, Caroline Meeks wrote:
>
>  Today we worked with two groups on multiplication. They made squares with
>> each side being a different multiplication problem that had the same answer.
>>
>> http://screencast.com/t/sUbiof2H
>>
>> We also had them reflect in their Journals about what they did.
>>
>> All of this went well.
>>
>> What was horrible was trying to get the right point in the project saved
>> to the Journal and then navigating to the correct place to write.
>>
>
> Sorry if this sounds a little terse, but it seems you decided to completely
> avoid using the "Stop" button at the end of each of your tasks:
>
> 1) Start a new Activity
> 2) Do stuff
> 3) Stop Activity
> 4) Name it
> 5) Goto 1
>
> The "Keep" button, as currently implemented, will come back to haunt you
> when you return to work on those activities later (I've tried to explain
> this in all its gory detail in previous emails). None of the issues you
> mention above have yet hit the gory Keep versioning issues, so you'll have
> that joy to come when kids want to resume a couple of old kept activities
> for reference when working on a new one.
>
> I'll be happy the day that the "Keep" button is removed, it's clearly
> causing you and others horrible confusion. I smiled the day I realised the
> new toolbar designs at least demoted that darn button to a second class UI
> component (i.e hidden in a secondary toolbar) :-) It would be better if it
> just died even if we have no better replacement. For the engineers reading,
> the "Keep" function actively prevents users from 'manual merging' of their
> work, so as an intended method for exposing a versioning system, it is
> actually having the reverse effect.
>
>  The solution I suggest is when you click the Keep button (Journal Icon)
>> from an activity that the Journal reflection dialog box appears.
>>
>> Here are the problems we had.
>>
>>        • Hard to get to the Journal, no easy F# short cut.
>>
>
> There's been lot's of discussion (feature proposals, email threads, trac
> ticket comments) trying to find a free F# key that is not gong to conflict.
> F5 seemed a good candidate but is a poor choice for XO hardware. Likely we
> need a control panel that allows distros/deployments to make their own
> choice and for the user then to have the ability to change if needed
> (perhaps the current frame CP module would be a place for changing Sugar
> shortcuts).
>
>         • Hard to find the little arrow that gets you to where you can
>> write. Especially since if the Frame is active, which it has to be to get to
>> the Journal, the little bitty arrow you need to click is covered.
>>
>
> There's a recent deployment (Mexico I think) ticket reporting this, I'm
> sure a design solution can be found. Note that you could direct kids to use
> the palette menu on the icon and select "View Details" as an alternative.
>
>         • When students did their assigned task they were eager to go back
>> to exploring with Sugar and wrote over their work without it being saved, or
>> using the same name as the assigned activity.  This was probably the worst
>> outcome because then it was like they hadn't done the assignment, they had
>> nothing to show for their work and we'll want to use it later for a
>> portfolio.
>>
>
> Get them to "Stop" when complete, and then "Start new".
>
>         • clicking the Activity Tab to write down the name is a PITA (this
>> one is fixed in .88 I think).
>>
>
> The 0.86 new toolbar design still requires you to click the Activity
> toolbar icon to show the title input box, but at least you're not then lost
> at that point (i.e. primary toolbar still visible and usable).
>
>         • After they reflected they wanted to immediately go back to
>> exploring in TA and we had to stop them, make them change the name again.
>> They were very perplexed by this because they didn't know what to name their
>> new file because they hadn't done anything yet.
>>
>
> Get them to "Stop" when complete, and then "Start new"...
>
>         • The word "Description" is not very friendly. I like "What did you
>> do?" Walter wants to expand it even further, I'm not sure about that, its
>> pretty challenging for the students to type so I'm not sure we want more
>> boxes.
>>
>
> No comment, I don't like this whole dialogue to be honest (it breaks my
> working flow and distracts me from whatever I'm trying to achieve), but I'm
> not a pedagogic type so don't feel I have a say in this design. I get the
> impression most (adults and kids) will just skip past this dialogue anyway
> give half a chance. There's been some noises to remove this dialogue
> completely, or at least let folks easily disable it from within Sugar.
>
>         • Confusion between the Keep button and the samples and the
>> snapshot icons.
>>
>
> This is pretty much a TA design issue (and also that everyone still seems
> to be completely confused as what the "Keep" button actually does).
>
>         • No feedback when you click Keep so there is a tendency to click
>> it repeatedly.
>>
>
> Yea, that's always bad.
>
>  I usually try to stick with reporting my observations and not giving
>> specific usability advice but this time I really have an opinion. I think it
>> would be much much more useful to have the Keep button popup the Journal
>> Dialog box. That would let me reflect and also rename if I want to.
>>
>> What are the downsides of this?
>>
>
>
> If we kill "Keep" and replace it with the actually useful "Keep a copy"
> function (i.e. no attempt at versioning), there would be merit in
> considering a naming dialogue; however I think we'll have confusion as the
> naming dialogue would now be for the new copy i.e. users would be asked to
> name and describe an activity before actually doing it; currently when you
> click "Stop" you are asked to name and describe the activity you have just
> done.
>
> Regards,
> --Gary
>
> P.S. Pretend "Keep" is not there, 1) Start a new Activity, 2) Do stuff, 3)
> Stop Activity, 4) Name it, 5) Goto 1 ;-)
>
>


-- 
Caroline Meeks
Solution Grove
Caroline at SolutionGrove.com

617-500-3488 - Office
505-213-3268 - Fax
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