[Sugar-devel] [DESIGN] 'Resume' vs 'Start a new' Activity

vijit singh vijitthetopcoder at gmail.com
Thu Jan 7 06:45:08 EST 2010


Hello Simon,

Yes, I believe that's a good point. It's a bit confusing at times. I myself
got confused a few times in the beginning when I switched over from sugar
0.82 to 0.84 and was in a habit of clicking the activity icon at once as in
sugar 0.82.

I think a better option would be to -

1) show the start option for a fresh instance of the activity when someone
hovers over the activity icon.
2) start a fresh instance when someone clicks left mouse button.
3) show the whole palette( including the previous instances) when someone
clicks the right mouse button or waits after hovering.

Regards,
VIJIT

I have observed certain difficulties with the 'resume' and 'start a new'
> activity concept. At the moment we have the following situation:
>
> *** Current Situation:
> In the Home View you can resume an activity and start a new one. The option
> to start a new activity is in the palette of the activity icon. A list of
> last entries from this activity type is present in the palette as well. When
> you click on the icon with the left mouse button, the last activity is
> resumed by default. Clicking with the right mouse button on the icon does
> reveal the activity palette. The activity is revealed after a delay when
> hovering over the icon, too. Since version 0.86 when you hold the alt-key
> pressed and click on the activity icon you can start a new activity. This is
> visually guided by the uncolored activity icon.
>
> In the Journal you can resume activities. There is no option to start a new
> activity from within the Journal.
>
>
> *** Background:
> I teach a Sugar class of 15 students (5th and 6th grade) in a German
> primary school [1]. The classes are on a weekly one hour basis. They had
> 10-15 hours of Sugar by now. We use Sugar 0.84 on Fedora 11. I explained the
> concept of the Journal, repeated several times how to start a new activity
> and how to resume one. I explained them that revealing of the palette is
> quicker when using the right mouse button.
>
>
> *** Disclaimer:
> The information below is not meant to be hard data. There are differences
> in backgrounds (cultural etc), ages and quite importantly: a difference
> between a first time user, a regular user and a daily user. Some might as
> well question if I have chosen the right methodical way to explain things,
> and be sure sometimes I do question myself, however the data gathered might
> be a good basis for discussing this issue and maybe others will provide some
> data, too.
>
>
> *** Observations:
> Most of the kids click on the activity icon when they want to start a new
> activity. Since there is a delay to reveal the palette, the learner does not
> see the other information in the palette.
>
> When they resume a previous activity, and they wanted to start a new one, I
> have seen learners erasing the previous content and keep on working in that
> activity.
>
> Nearly all the kids do not use the right click to reveal the palette. They
> wait for it to appear.
>
>
> *** Survey:
> Last class I asked the learners in a small survey the following questions:
>
> A: How do you do a new drawing in TurtleArt?
> R:
> Some: Nothing, or did misunderstood the question.
> Some: I click on TurtleArt.
> One said: One clicks with the right mouse on TurtleArt and clicks with the
> left one on New.
> One said: Go on TurtleArt, wait, click New.
>
> A: How do you edit a previous drawing in TurtleArt?
> R:
> Many: Go to the Journal and resume there.
> One: Go to Journal or right click and choose the one one want to resume.
> One: Go on TurtleArt and choose the name one wants to resume.
> Some: Nothing / did not understand the question
>
> A: Is there a difference between the right mouse click and the left mouse
> click?
> R:
> One: it is quicker to use the right mouse button.
> Some: you get a new field/list.
> Many: Nothing / did not understand the question
>
>
> *** Comments:
> The concept of using the Journal to resume a previous activity does work
> very well for the kids. With adding the list of previous activities to the
> activity palette in the home view we added that concept to the home view.
> The issue is, it is a secondary option. There is only one way in Sugar to
> start a new activity - to work from scratch. And this is a secondary option.
>
> For me it would be worth trying to test going back to create a new one by
> default, as I think this is what my learners somehow expected.
>
> Small additions to the activity palette could be helpful, too. Adding the
> journal date field to the entries. And having headers like in [2], though I
> think there was a technical issue with this.
>
> Another improvement could be to cut the delay, so the secondary options are
> more prominent. Or, the left mouse click would reveal the palette and the
> learner then needs to decide what option to choose. This would clash with
> the rest of the UI I guess.
>
> I remember we had some design mockups quite some time ago, where a certain
> amount of Journal entries where displayed in the home view in a horizontal
> time line. Maybe this would help to make the Journal more accessible from
> there.
>
>
> Congrats, if you made it reading that far. Comments, ideas, mockups, plans
> for more data I should provide etc welcome.
>
> Thanks,
>   Simon
>
>
> [1] at the moment only in German: http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Planetarium
> [2] http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Design_Team/Designs/Activity_Management#6
>
>
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