[Sugar-devel] Appearance Customization

[C. Scott Ananian]

I don't think you need to do any studies about whether kids want to
customize their computers.  This has been a constant message from
deployments since day 1.  The first thing kids did with the very first
XOs fielded was slap stickers all over them to customize them.

Unfortunately, kids have no sense of taste or decorum, and so their
desire to have a hello kitty home screen (or whatever) is historically
countered by NN's desire to be like Apple, all clean and elegant.
This was supported by the UX design team, which wants a design which
wins awards, not one that is plastered with kids favorite soccer
players or whatever.

Walter has tried to bridge this divide in the past by presenting it as
a teaching opportunity: make one of the first XO lesson how to
customize the code to change the XO man in the home screen or change
the colors.  This gives them incentive to learn how to hack the code.
It's a very interesting compromise, and maybe it's even the right
thing.

Anyway, I think we should let the kids customize their machines easily
-- certainly to change the colors.  But this discussion is an old one.
 I wonder how it will turn out this time, maybe we've finally moved
past some of the old bugbears.
  --scott