[Sugar-devel] Zooming User Interface

[Christian Stroetmann]

Hi again

And here is a collaborative story authoring tool for children called 
KidPad ([1]) based on ZUI and related with Pad++. It is based on Jazz 
respectively Piccolo ([2]; unmantained website), which has as successor  
Piccolo2 ([3]; use this website for more software technical 
informations). Said this, the general concept to use a ZUI for 
eductional software is not so new.

I also looked at the Sugar framework again in relation with a potential 
prototyp of Sugar+ZUI. At least two options exist:
1. Put ZUI into a Linux kernel.
Pro: In this way Sugar developers could decide if they want to use it or 
not. This might also have advantages with the overall perforamance
Contra: There are X11, D-Bus and Gnome dependancies.
Personally, I prefer Wayland instead of X11 but this is another Sugar 
enhancement.
2. Put ZUI into the Glucose layer.
Pro: ?
Contra: Binds ZUI to Python or/and JavaSript.
Personally, I prefer my Boot to WebCore with C++Core, but this is 
another Sugar story.



Christian

[1] KidPad www.cs.umd.edu/hcil/kiddesign/kidpad.shtml
[2] Jazz and Piccolo www.cs.umd.edu/hcil/jazz/
[3] Piccolo2 www.piccolo2d.org

> Hi again
>
> I forget to say something to your question related with the 
> educational technology.
>
> Firstly, I found the following statements on the webpage "What is 
> Sugar?" in the section "About the Sugar Learning Platform" of Sugar 
> ([1]) that says:
> " It is easy to approach and yet it doesn't put an upper bound on 
> personal expression; one can peel away layers and go deeper and 
> deeper, with no restrictions." and
> "[...] in whatever realm the learner is exploring [...] they are able 
> to drill deeper; they are not going to hit a wall, since they can, at 
> every level, engage in debugging both their personal expression and 
> the very tools that they use for that expression."
>
> Hence, Sugar+ZUI supports the learning even with the related UI 
> paradigm that reflects the general computer desktop metaphor as well 
> as the 3rd characteristical attribute of Sugar.
>
> Secondly, if the U.S. government supports this ZUI based Prezi 
> software as part of a billion U.S. Dollar donation even if it does not 
> comply with ADA and 508 actually, then there must be a very strong 
> reason to include a ZUI based application in a framework of 
> educational software. Sadly to say, I do not know the true reason 
> actually, but my instinct gives me a very clear hint. For sure, I do 
> know that these might not be convicting arguments.
>
>
>
> Christian
>
> [1] Sugar, What is Sugar?, About the Sugar Learning Plattform 
> wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/What_is_Sugar
>
>> Hi Sam
>>
>> Basically, I find this ZUI concept as attractive as the 
>> multi-touchscreen and the mind mapping approach.
>>
>> Also, the foundational hierachical structure of Sugar with the views 
>> you mentioned fits perfectly with a ZUI.
>> The problem I have seen is that the screen gets more and more crowded 
>> with icons when Sugar is used and collaborations are made. Also, 
>> specific applications like the Journal suffer from this problem 
>> respectively allow to present only a small list of documents and 
>> activities at once. In this relation, I refer to some screenshots 
>> that I have seen on the Sugar Labs website. A solution to this 
>> problem is a ZUI functionality.
>> Even better, due to the simple GUI metaphor of Sugar deliberately 
>> designed for children, Sugar+ZUI should already run smoothly when a 
>> user zooms in an out with actual hardware.
>>
>> The actual plan is to try to implement a prototyp of Sugar+ZUI, 
>> though until now it is just a concept and a plan, and I wanted to ask 
>> the other developers at first, if they are interested and if it is 
>> worth to go in this direction at all.
>>
>>
>>
>> Christian
>>
>>> Totally forgot to reply all xD
>>>
>>> On Mar 1, 2014 9:10 PM, "Sam Parkinson" <sam.parkinson3 at gmail.com 
>>> <mailto:sam.parkinson3 at gmail.com>> wrote:
>>>
>>>     Hi,
>>>
>>>     In sugar we currently have 'the views'. I think the vid on our
>>>     site shows that.
>>>
>>>     The whole zui thing does look cool, but besides prezi I cannot
>>>     see any clear use cases in edu tech. What do you have in mind?
>>>
>>>     Sam
>>>
>>>     On Mar 1, 2014 9:04 PM, "Christian Stroetmann"
>>>     <stroetmann at ontolab.com <mailto:stroetmann at ontolab.com>> wrote:
>>>
>>>         Aloha
>>>
>>>         Since many years now I am looking at Sugar and the
>>>         underlying basic software technologies. Besides this, I am
>>>         also interested in the specific field of Graphical User
>>>         Interfaces (GUI).
>>>
>>>         In this relation, I would like to present a concept that is
>>>         an extension of the general GUI approach of the Sugar
>>>         learning software with a Zooming User Interface (ZUI; [1]).
>>>
>>>         One inspiring moment was that recently the U.S.American
>>>         government together with companiens like Adobe, Prezi,
>>>         Microsoft and Apple announced to make software donationsto
>>>         schools (related reports can be find in the web easily).
>>>         One specific software is Prezi ([2]) that is developed in
>>>         Adobe Flash and Adobe AIR, and built on top of Django
>>>         (Python web framework). Surprisingly, Prezi is not compliant
>>>         with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and Section
>>>         508 of the Rehabilitation Act ([3] and [4])but used in
>>>         education (see again [2]).
>>>
>>>         I looked around and found the software Eagle Mode ([5]; for
>>>         a first impression see the videos on its website diretly).
>>>
>>>         Said this, I simply counted 1+1, Sugar+ZUI and Sugar+Eagle.
>>>
>>>         Such an UI approach has advantages and disadvantages that
>>>         are discussed shortly on the website of Eagle Mode (see
>>>         [6]). The point with the hardware requirements seems not to
>>>         be relevant, because for example the hardware of the latest
>>>         featurephones and featuretablets (simple smartphones and
>>>         tablet computers) should be useable with a ZUI and are
>>>         available for around 30 U.S. Dollar already.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>         Have fun
>>>         Christian Stroetmann
>>>
>>>         [1] Wikipedia, ZUI
>>>         en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zooming_user_interface
>>>         <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zooming_user_interface>
>>>         [2] Wikipedia, Prezi en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prezi
>>>         <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prezi>
>>>         [3] Wikipedia, Rehabilitation Act of
>>>         1973en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1973_Rehabilitation_Act
>>>         <http://1973en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1973_Rehabilitation_Act>
>>>         [4] Wikipedia, Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act
>>>         en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Section_508_of_the_Rehabilitation_Act
>>>         <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Section_508_of_the_Rehabilitation_Act>
>>>         [5] Eagle Mode eaglemode.sourceforge.net
>>>         <http://eaglemode.sourceforge.net>
>>>         [6] Eagle Mode, Project Philosoophy
>>>         eaglemode.sourceforge.net/philosophy.html
>>>         <http://eaglemode.sourceforge.net/philosophy.html>
>>>         _______________________________________________
>>>         Sugar-devel mailing list
>>>         Sugar-devel at lists.sugarlabs.org
>>>         <mailto:Sugar-devel at lists.sugarlabs.org>
>>>         http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/sugar-devel
>>>
>>>

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