[Sugar-devel] [FIELDBACK] 'Start New' vs 'Resume' in Home View

[Simon Schampijer]

Hi,

I did a little survey in the Planetarium pilot last week [1]. The
subject was "Start new" vs "Restart" in the home view. Christian did
provide a test protocol [2] and I made a Soas version of Sugar that 
let's you change the behavior with a button in the Home View [3].

*** Background:
We use Sugar 0.84 in this pilot. The kids do use Sugar for more than 
half a year now. I have repeated a lot of times in class the difference 
between 'Start New' vs 'Resume'. I made already another written survey 
with the kids about it [4].

*** Observations:
* The ring
All the kids did get well what the ring is for, and what the Journal is 
for. We make heavy use of the Journal, in class. The learners do write a 
summary after every Sugar session.

* Resume:
The Journal makes sense for the learners when it comes to resuming 
previous work. They know as well that they can resume from the Home 
View, though I explained this as well to them often. They understand 
quite well what the color means in the resume view ("we have worked with 
that activity already").

What becomes clear is: The kids do not use the right-click option. When 
describing 'how to start a new activity' they make phrases like: I wait 
for the option to appear. Note: I explained them several times that the 
right-click option exists, and they will say: "oh yeah, right with right 
click it does go quicker", but they will not use it :) These are results 
from observation and the survey. Right-click does seem to me like a 
poweruser tool.

* New
I think this option is quite well hidden. For a kid to start a new 
instance it takes quite some steps (including waiting for the palette to 
appear).

I am curious to what Gerald has to report from his survey. As his kids 
will have another background. I think, I would go back to start new as 
the default option.

Thanks,
      Simon

[1] http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Deployments/Planetarium
[2] http://lists.sugarlabs.org/archive/sugar-devel/2010-January/022155.html
[3] http://shell.sugarlabs.org/~erikos/soas-design-test-DE.iso,
http://shell.sugarlabs.org/~erikos/soas-design-test-EN.iso
[4] http://lists.sugarlabs.org/archive/sugar-devel/2010-January/021771.html