HI,
After a while, I have played with the latest OLPC eToys, and I'd like to share a few notes. I was running it on "regular" Linux distro .
1) A few notes about eToys experience:
- I really like the eToys new look, cleanup and changes.
- It seems that some menus have been simplified, which is great.
- The intro with 5 clouds and runing car is nice and fun! (Actually it would be fun if all menus were turned into clouds :) ) - one note here, it seems the "Load a Project" text is _not embedded_ in it's cloud.
- I think the largest potential issue is ease of eToys navigation for someone who is running the system for the first time. I am thinking how to modify the UI, without significant changes, to help a new user to not "get lost" (for example by following a few projects from the cloud menu). I think people's sense "not getting lost" is greatly satisfied when there is a way to know "how to go back" - either one step back, or all the way to the beginning. I realize this is where the "Navigator->Prev" is used, but it is not very obvious for a first time user, mostly because it's contents (the Prev button) is "hidden". I am thinking if the following would help:
- By default, always show the "Navigator" toolbar contents "expanded", so user can see the "New/Prev". This way it would be more obvious how to go back. It seems to me this would be a nice usability help for a small price
- Rename "Prev" to "Previous" or "Back". Add a more explicit popup, instead of "Previous Project", maybe "This button will take you back to the previous project"
- Add a "Home" button, to "Navigator". The "Home" button would take user all the way to the clouds menu.
- The demo is "modifiable" which is nice for playing, but at the same time it would be good if there was a way to revert it back to the initial state. The book now has this option which I love.
- A bigger change, and probably overkill, would be at the time of entry to any project, a popup would show for 5 second, something like "Use the red Navigator button on the bottom-left to go back where you came from". This would, at all times, give a small hint as to how to navigate.
- In general, the popup help on various items could be more wordy. One example, on "Supplies", instead of "A Source for many basic types of Objects" popup, could be "Click here to find useful objects. You can drag out objects to the area above and start using them". I do not mean this one thing is a problem, but in general I find it helpful if popup help is a bit more wordy, not sure this is the best for all ages though...
2) Next, about how to help more users to try OLPC eToys. I am running on "regular" Linux distro (non-olpc, Suse 10.2), by installing yum and then following steps on this page: http://etoys.laptop.org/. Perhaps a note could be added to http://etoys.laptop.org/, to explain that the steps described there will allow running OLPC eToys on any (reasonably recent) Linux system. (It was not clear to me, and I hesitated to install the RPMs). Also, I am thinking it would help teachers and interested people to try OLPC version of eToys, if we add a few links on how to run OLPC eToys on Windows, and Mac, maybe just a link to the Windows OLPC emulation page.
Sorry this is longer than I wanted, I really love the changes and cleanup, great work,
Milan