<br><br><div class="gmail_quote">---------- Forwarded message ----------<br>From: <b class="gmail_sendername">David Brown</b> <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:djhbrown@gmail.com">djhbrown@gmail.com</a>></span><br>Date: 10 August 2012 12:13<br>
Subject: sugar ui<br>To: Frederick Grose <<a href="mailto:fgrose@gmail.com">fgrose@gmail.com</a>>, <a href="mailto:xorduino@gmail.com">xorduino@gmail.com</a>, <a href="mailto:volunteer@laptop.org">volunteer@laptop.org</a><br>
<br><br>dear olpcers,<div><br></div><div>i am a recently retired computer scientist who would like to contribute design ideas to the project. my cv is <a href="https://sites.google.com/site/djhbrown2/CV.doc" target="_blank">here</a>.</div>
<div>
<br></div><div>having looked at the sugar interface, my first impression is that it needs a complete rework. i do not know what its users (kids) make of it though, nor can i find any data on user experiences. </div>
<div><br></div><div>i'm disappointed not to find any openly-published separately-produced k12 stuff on xo; perhaps it is all platform-dependent? sugar is based on fedora i believe, so would it run any app written for fedora?</div>
<div>
<br>
</div><div>aside from that, i would be interested to contribute to an english language learning project. there is a ton of stuff already out there which could be collected together, rather than reinvent the wheel.</div>
<div>
<br></div><div>is there a software development management structure? who makes the release decisions?</div><div><br></div><div>is there an olpc executive operations management structure? why isnt olpc in bed with national school curriculum/materials organisations? or maybe it is - but if so, why aren't xos available to schools who can afford to buy them? </div>
<div><br></div><div>what is the target age range of xo users?</div><div><br></div><div>i like the notion of sugar network, but when i look at the screenshots on <a href="http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Sugar_Network/Tutorial" target="_blank">http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Sugar_Network/Tutorial</a> i find it hard to imagine what a child would do with it. a screen full of coloured x's does not convey any useful information other than the number of them... it reads as if it was made by unix enthusiasts for unix enthusiasts</div>
<div><br></div><div>scott's blog mentions an effort last year to develop narrative interfaces - this sounds like a good idea, did anything come of it? i looked at the video by <span style="background-color:rgb(247,247,247);font-family:Arial,Verdana,sans-serif;font-size:12px;line-height:17px;text-align:left">Angela Chang but couldn't find any contact info for her. i noticed the text she was displaying is not read out aloud at the time it is displayed, which i would have thought is vital for a language learning tool. she also seems to be of a mind that children would use it with their parents in attendance, but children need to be able to learn a foreign language without their parents' help.</span></div>
<div><span style="background-color:rgb(247,247,247);font-family:Arial,Verdana,sans-serif;font-size:12px;line-height:17px;text-align:left"><br></span></div><div><span style="background-color:rgb(247,247,247);font-family:Arial,Verdana,sans-serif;font-size:12px;line-height:17px;text-align:left">this raises a general point, surely xo needs to be an "obvious" interface?? (ie users should not need any outside help to use it. it should be "ready to hand").</span></div>
<div><br></div><div>david</div><div><br></div><div>website <<a href="http://sites.google.com/site/djhbrown2/home" target="_blank">http://sites.google.com/site/djhbrown2/home</a>><br>
<a href="tel:%2B61%280%29266537638" value="+61266537638" target="_blank">+61(0)266537638</a><br><a href="tel:%2B61%280%29488471949" value="+61488471949" target="_blank">+61(0)488471949</a><br><br><div class="gmail_quote">
On 10 August 2012 01:58, Frederick Grose <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:fgrose@gmail.com" target="_blank">fgrose@gmail.com</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
<div>On Wed, Aug 8, 2012 at 12:51 AM, David Brown <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:djhbrown@gmail.com" target="_blank">djhbrown@gmail.com</a>></span> wrote:<br></div><div class="gmail_quote"><div>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
thanks for your comprehensive reply, Fred. i have looked at the links you cited. i am surprised olpc is still using irc chat and mail lists - is there an operational reason for this? </blockquote><div><br></div></div><div>
The hardware & software developers at OLPC and Sugar Labs are most comfortable with IRC and mailing lists as they are part of their current cultural tradition (<a href="http://wiki.laptop.org/go/OLPC:What_we_mean_by_free_and_open" target="_blank">they feel part of</a> the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_and_open-source_software" target="_blank">free/libre/open-source software</a> tradition). Many are loath to using alternative, especially commercial software. The support staff and others at OLPC might be excepted from this characterization (in my estimation) as their work tools must align with standard business software.</div>
<div>
<div><br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><div><div>things like design require a lot of thought, and chat is not the best way to provoke thought, as exemplified by the inanity of academic department meetings!. chat is good for one-on-one socialising though.</div>
<div><br></div><div>here is one basic principle i would advocate:the xo interface (which is intendedly predicated upon activity and communication) needs to be good enough (suitable) for xo developers to use it for their own group communication.... it's clearly not as it stands.</div>
<div><br></div><div>you mention "developers" and i read somewhere about "core developers". i imagine there is a team somewhere, probably in Miami, that drives the development. those are the people i would like to communicate with to start with, to jointly come up with a better basic design than the current one. then it could be implemented, bench tested and then beta tested on the user community.</div>
</div></blockquote><div><br></div></div><div>The basic Sugar design came from <a href="http://new.pentagram.com/2006/12/new-work-one-laptop-per-child/" target="_blank">Pentagram</a>'s <span style="color:rgb(51,51,51);font-size:13px;line-height:18.46666717529297px"><font face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif">Lisa Strausfeld, Christian Marc Schmidt and Takaaki Okada collaborating with Walter Bender and Eben Eliason at OLPC. Only Walter Bender is active with Sugar Labs or OLPC.</font></span></div>
<div><span style="color:rgb(51,51,51);font-size:13px;line-height:18.46666717529297px"><font face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif"><br></font></span></div><div><span style="color:rgb(51,51,51);font-size:13px;line-height:18.46666717529297px"><font face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif">C. Scott Ananian, Director of New Technologies at OLPC, has <a href="http://cananian.livejournal.com/" target="_blank">a blog</a> that tracks his thinking and work. Other current design work centers on <a href="http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Design_Team/Sugar_Shell_Touch_Input" target="_blank">touch input</a> and <a href="http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Sugar_Network" target="_blank">community collaboration</a>.</font></span></div>
<div>
<div><span style="color:rgb(51,51,51);font-size:13px;line-height:18.46666717529297px"><font face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif"><br></font></span></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
<div>
<div>i thought about subscribing to <a href="http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/Sugar-devel" target="_blank">http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/Sugar-devel</a> but it is bound to contain lots of emails about implementation details that do not interest me - my focus is solely on the user-level design style, principles, purpose, etc</div>
</div></blockquote><div><br></div></div><div>The list will accept a non-subscriber submission (after a delay for moderation); or, you could use a Gmail filter, for example on [DESIGN], to limit your reading.</div><div>
<div><br></div>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><div>
<div>are you a "core developer"? if home page design is a key interest of yours, perhaps we could exchange ideas by email?</div></div></blockquote><div><br></div></div><div>I am a volunteer, wiki coordinator for Sugar Labs, and work on Sugar on a Stick installation and replication scripts.</div>
<div><br></div><div>Alternative ideas and designs for the Home view would best be shared in the wiki (such as on a personal page linked to the <a href="http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Talk:Design_Team/Proposals/Home_View" target="_blank">discussion page</a>) with an accompanying post to Sugar-devel.</div>
<div><br></div><div>Thanks for your interest. --Fred</div></div><span class="HOEnZb"><font color="#888888">
</font></span></blockquote></div><span class="HOEnZb"><font color="#888888"><br><br clear="all"><div><br></div>-- <br><br><br><br><br><br><div></div><br>
</font></span></div>
</div><br><br clear="all"><div><br></div>-- <br>website <<a href="http://sites.google.com/site/djhbrown2/home" target="_blank">http://sites.google.com/site/djhbrown2/home</a>><br>+61(0)266537638<br>+61(0)488471949<br>
<br><br><br><br><div></div><br>