[etoys-dev] The Paradox of Choice

[K. K. Subramaniam]

On Saturday 04 Feb 2012 7:41:36 PM karl ramberg wrote:
> I read this article
> http://www.hiltmon.com/blog/2012/02/01/the-paradox-of-choice/
> 
> It would be fun to hear what other here think Etoys related to choices.
> Designing a environment as complex and flexible as Etoys is hard.
> Many problems are left to the user to solve. To get results can be
> frustrating and bewildering.
> Are Etoys to complex for users?
> Scratch is a much simpler system, yet much more used.

IMHO, it is not about choices as much as affordances. Etoys is not intuitive 
enough. It takes a huge leap of faith to connect "eye" icon with the concept 
of scripting. How intuitive is this association? eye->view->viewer->tile 
collections->script->scripting.

When a morph is deleted, it slides into Trash so the effect can be guessed. But 
when Paint button is clicked, there is no animation for the modal easel that 
pops up. This cartoonish easel is so out of place with the rest of Etoys. I 
have seen kids getting confused and continue to work in the onion skin as if 
it were a world. It takes considerable guidance for them to truly grasp the 
concept of painting an object into existence.

Regards .. Subbu