[Sugar-devel] [IAEP] Yet more feedback from Boston! - Chat and Speak

[Gary C Martin]

On 15 Aug 2009, at 19:57, Eben Eliason wrote:

> On Sat, Aug 15, 2009 at 1:35 PM, Gary C Martin<gary at garycmartin.com>  
> wrote:
>> On 14 Aug 2009, at 17:11, Eben Eliason wrote:
>>
>>> On Thu, Aug 13, 2009 at 8:28 PM, Caroline
>>> Meeks<caroline at solutiongrove.com> wrote:
>>>>
>>>> Neither wind nor rain nor flaming emails will deter me from  
>>>> telling you
>>>> about what happened with kids and Sugar today in Boston! You  
>>>> however are
>>>> free to use your delete key at any time.
>>>> Today, working with 6th grade students at the Museum of Science  
>>>> Computer
>>>> Clubhouse I learned not to start a Sugar intro session with  
>>>> chat.  It was
>>>> hard for us to believe but the kids spent 3 hours really wanting  
>>>> to do
>>>> nothing but use chat to talk to other kids in the same room!!  We  
>>>> did get
>>>> them to use other things but
>>>> next time I will end with Chat, not start with it :)
>>>> We used both Chat and Speak.  Chat was more robust.
>>>> I suggest that Speak be limited to about 4 participants. It  
>>>> seemed die a
>>>> lot and if someone typed a lot of garbdy gook it would try to say  
>>>> it all and
>>>> get behind.  What do other people think of this idea? Should I  
>>>> ticket it?
>>>> I started the lesson by creating a chat, sharing it and showing the
>>>> students
>>>> how to join from their neighborhood. That worked fairly well.
>>>> However, some of the students wanted to create a private chat.   
>>>> It could
>>>> be
>>>> done but it was very challenging workflow.  The problem is if two  
>>>> kids
>>>> decide they want to chat the natural thing for them to do is both  
>>>> goto
>>>> Home
>>>> and click on Chat and share that with the neighborhood.  This  
>>>> results in
>>>> two
>>>> chats and much confusion.  I don't know how to solve this, as I'm  
>>>> not
>>>> gifted
>>>> at UI design, but its clearly a problem.  Perhaps when you start  
>>>> chat you
>>>> have a UI inside of chat that lets you join other existing chats
>>>> directly.
>>>
>>> I think there are a few first-steps to simplify this process that  
>>> have
>>> already been designed. First and foremost, it should be possible to
>>> select a sharing scope when starting a new activity. In past  
>>> mockups,
>>> we offered this functionality via a "Start with >" option, which
>>> revealed a submenu containing both a list of friends, and a list of
>>> groups. We could build the first part of this today.
>>>
>>> Likewise, the redesign of the sharing controls within the activity
>>> itself provide us the chance to do the same when sharing an ongoing
>>> activity. In addition to listing "private" and "my neighborhood", we
>>> could also introduce "my friends", as well as individuals.
>>
>> Ooohhh, nice one, +1, though I think the actual menu needs some  
>> thinking
>> about so we don't conflate the Journal "Resume with -> <activity>"  
>> and this
>> proposed home view "Start with -> <Friend>". Also think "Start with  
>> ->
>
> Good point. Perhaps resuming should say "Resume in >" instead, to
> indicate that you're entering into a new activity context.

+1

>> Neighbourhood" should be in that list. There is also the issue of  
>> shared
>
> Oh, absolutely. In my mind, "My Neighborhood" and "My friends" should
> act like two implicit groups. I think the best way to order the
> submenu is [my neighborhood, my friends, {list of groups}, {list of
> friends}].

+1

>> activity titles... Currently you have to title your activity before  
>> sharing
>> (though that even feature seems somewhat buggy, not sure if this is  
>> broken
>> Sugar UI, or an issue with Telepathy), otherwise you just get  
>> default "Chat
>> Activity" activities in the neighbourhood.
>
> There have been a number of discussions and ideas around better
> default names for activity titles. Perhaps we could take a small step
> with a potentially large payoff and make the default activity title
> "<name>'s <activity> activity" instead, so that at least we'd have
> "Eben's chat activity" and "Gary's chat activity", which is far more
> useful as a default.

+0.2 Downsides... the Journal will fill up with your name duplicated  
on many lines. The name suggests possession, when really we want to be  
suggesting collaboration/sharing. The 's will be incorrect for folks  
with names ending in s, and not sure if this is simple for localisers  
to find good equivalents.

>> Tthere is at least one obvious string change to be made to the home  
>> activity
>> palettes. "Start" should be "New", or given above possible feature  
>> perhaps
>> "Start new" is better, so that "Start new with -> <Friend>" will  
>> read a
>> little better:
>
> I like keeping the distinction between "start" and "resume", both of
> which are verbs. That's important. If we fel the need to make it more
> explicit by appending "new", that could work, but I'm not sure it's
> necessary with the proper uncolored icon.

+1 for "Start new" then. Every time I read "Start" I still mentally  
ask my self "start what?"

Perhaps we can confirm consensus at the Sunday IRC design meeting, and  
then add the necessary trac tickets?

Regards,
--Gary