Notes from a Planning Session

[Marco Pesenti Gritti]

2008/4/11 Carol Lerche <cafl at msbit.com>:
> Thank you for sharing this discussion.  Upon reading it I had two questions.
>
> Sugar.   I have seen offers on this list from a class ofuniversity graduate
> students to do usability testing.  Maybe someone responded to them
> privately.  (That would have been perfectly appropriate.)  But in reading
> the portion of the planning discussion about APIs and sugar, I was struck by
> the unstated assumption that the sugar interface is unquestionably a good
> thing.  Where is the usability testing with children of the age groups OLPC
> targets that proves that this is so, in comparison with a more conventional
> desktop model?  In watching 5-6 year olds use the interface for a week, I
> was struck by sugar's complexity in pursuit of simplicity.  It was a
> difficult interface for the children to learn.  Too many steps, including
> going among different screens.  Perhaps I am wrong.  But I would like to see
> the same care in usability testing for younger kids that has been given to
> ensuring that all the underlying components are written in Python and thus
> potentially modifiable by the oldest target audience.  Please point me to
> the usability studies I have missed.

http://www.gnome.org/~seth/blog/onusabilitytesting

Marco