[sugar] perceived sugar performance

[Walter Bender]

I don't mean to discount personal experiences and anything we
collectively do to improve the experience is a plus. But your two
examples are a wonderful case in point. Resume from Journal is too
slow and doesn't provide feedback and it does seem to deter use of the
Journal as a way to revisit old work. (Also--being addressed in the
refactoring of Sugar--is the current mismatch between how easy it is
to launch a new instance than to resume an old instance.) On the other
hand, I've never seen in the field any issue with how long it takes to
shutdown the machine. It is annoying, yes, but it doesn't have much
impact on how the kids use the laptops. But I look forward to more
feedback and ideas from developers, teachers, and kids.

thanks.

-walter

On Mon, Apr 28, 2008 at 5:01 PM, Mikus Grinbergs <mikus at bga.com> wrote:
> I'm neither a child nor a teacher, so this opinion is personal :
>
>  What you want to avoid is having the user decide "my intent has been
>  ignored", when in fact it is something "under the covers" that is
>  delaying the completion of his intent.
>
>  The best way I can think of to avoid the user making a wrong
>  decision is to give him "feedback" whenever the XO enters a
>  condition perceived as "as yet, nothing seems to be happening".
>
>  --------
>
>  You are probably asking about situations where responsiveness is
>  expected in seconds (let educators determine how long a wait needs
>  to be to cross the threshold into "too long").  What I believe is
>  needed is showing "Yes, something *is* happening".  Many operating
>  systems use the cursor appearance to tell the user "working on it".
>  [Eye candy might distract the user during unavoidable waits.]
>
>  If confirmation takes "too long", the user might end up confused.
>  For example, I restarted an Activity from the Journal (no longer
>  remember which one);  nothing seemed to be happening, so I used
>  alt-tab to switch to an existing Activity;  a while later, while I
>  was viewing its screen, the XO suddenly transferred the display to
>  showing the screen of the new Activity, which had finally started.
>  [A change to supply an unmistakable confirmation of "Activity
>  starting" has been described -- I wish it were available now.]
>
>  --------
>
>  Harder to endure are the situations where it can take minutes to do
>  something.  I am (and I expect others will be, as well) too
>  impatient to sit still and wait for these to complete - I'll switch
>  my attention to something else, and will need to be informed of what
>  became of the thing I was waiting for. [For example, I believe that
>  if connectivity to a server is lost -- recovery might be soon, but
>  also it might take more than five minutes.]  I believe there should
>  be an ongoing indication (e.g., slow blinking of a front panel
>  light) that unambiguously shows the user "I'm slowly working on
>  this", with a specific how-it-concluded indication when this
>  "working" activity ends (e.g., light goes off for "connection given
>  up for good", or light goes steady for "connection properly
>  established").
>
>
>  [Shutdown is an example of where I feel the XO is a "drag" - it
>  takes me 40+ seconds.  I don't know if "closing the lid" while the
>  screen is still lit will cause problems, or if before packing up the
>  XO I have to just sit and wait until the screen goes dark.]
>
>
>  mikus  (running G1G1, not emulator)
>
>
>
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