[olpc-nz] [Testing] Testing summary - Auckland New Zealand, 29 May 2010

Mikus Grinbergs mikus at bga.com
Mon May 31 19:02:52 EDT 2010


> Thanks, that's a good point to raise. Christian and I had quick #sugar-meeting on Saturday about
> some ongoing design plans to improve the resume/start behaviour. It's roughly a full screen
> dialogue (like the control panel and naming dialogues) that appear when an activity is clicked,
> and provides the features currently found in the hover home palettes. It's one solution to the,
> "if I click will it resume a previous session, or start new?"
> 
> Perhaps with this extra space it might be possible to introduce a way
> to 'start shared' for new activities.

Please consider:

Palettes may require dexterity to use - but they *already* allow the
user to select between 'start anew' and 'resume'.

My experience with "full screen" is that they take WAY TOO LONG to open
with F11-on-XO -- for instance the wait between clicking on an icon in
Home View and seeing the "launching" full screen is often one second -
and occasionally it's been more like five seconds.

The advantage of the palette is that "what is happening" is visible
throughout -- the user has to hover (or left click) first, before the
palette opens -- and subsequently when the user clicks within a palette
that entry's highlight disappears instantly;  whereas ANY interval
whatsoever after the triggering action for invoking full screen leaves
the user dangling "in purgatory" until that expected screen appears.


Also, while simplifying user controls is wonderful for when things go as
expected, the user is left helpless when they do not.  In this case,
suppose the user indicates 'start shared' - and the Activity starts, but
doesn't share. What is the user expected to do - write a problem ticket?
 [I was thinking of a "try again to share" capability.]


mikus









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