[Etoys] A low floor "Paint" door into eToys

[K. K. Subramaniam]

On Tuesday 25 Nov 2008 12:22:25 am Yoshiki Ohshima wrote:
> At Mon, 24 Nov 2008 17:40:48 +0530,
>
> K. K. Subramaniam wrote:
> > I found young children (non-English) have trouble dealing
> > with such modal painting environments without "training". The paint tools
> > are not child-friendly.
>
>   Do you mean that it can be fully non-modal?
All paint tools are modal to some extent. It is just that the current paint 
tool is difficult for children with non-English backgrounds to use without 
training. Direct tools like Lasso are more intuitive.

> > Many of the paint tool functions can be achieved
> > if we allow children to "embed" or "stamp" by a press-n-hold or lay pen
> > trails using hold-n-drag. A child can spend more time "thinking" than
> > worrying about missteps.
>
>   Isn't holding a key a modal operation?
Yes but it is intuitive and does not break the workflow. I have noticed that 
when kids work in Squeak, their thoughts tend to get ahead of their hands. If 
the operation is not intuitive then the train of thought gets interrupted. 
Over the next few weeks, I will get an opportunity to engage about 1000 kids 
in villages like [1]. Let me see what works best with kids.

[1] http://maps.google.com/maps?q=12.4914,77.5870

Subbu