By Eddie Lopez.
Saturday, 27. January 2007, 15:21:49
UI, Good Design, hardware, laptop
...
Dantesoft sent a few links our way on the OLPC...
This link sums up the
OLPC HIG Guidlines by saying:
If you haven’t done so already, go read the OLPC HIG now. I swear to God, this document is a work of pure, inspired genius....This UI is quite simply one of the deepest and most interesting redesigns of the desktop user interface ever produced. It makes MacOS look like what it is - boring and unoriginal. The list of things this UI gets right is so long it makes my head spin
..and I wanted to note the very first paragraph of the "
Core Ideas" section which I thought was interesting:
Activities, Not Applications
There are no software applications in the traditional sense on the laptop. The laptop focuses children around "activities." This is more than a new naming convention; it represents an intrinsic quality of the learning experience we hope the children will have when using the laptop. Activities are distinct from applications in their foci—collaboration and expression—and their implementation—journaling and iteration.
They even took new ideas approach to the trackpad and keyboard. No capslock, "erase" instead of delete, larger enter key...
Of course, OLPC has been in the news at around these parts as well as it's
currently in Opera's hands running the browser.
By Eddie.
Tuesday, 4. October 2005, 14:55:11
luggage, laptop, activity centered, usability
While shopping for a bag to take to and from work (from OGIO of course) I noticed ebags.com has a "will my laptop fit" link available on those bags that have the laptop innards. You click the link and they have a bunch options availble and popular models listed right off the bat (like 17" Powerbook). I didn't go through all the motions- but it appears you can also enter your laptop and receive a list of all the bags available on ebags.com that your gear will fit in. Very cool approach for when the activity here is "find a bag for my laptop." You get a list of all the bags that meet the criteria right off the bat instead of having to check the dimensions on EVERY single item you're interested in.
I suppose it would also be nice to show a "here's what doesn't fit" just so you have an idea. Maybe even just say something like "we have 11 bags that are too small for you laptop..." and link to those. I mention this because I suppose it's possible that a user may be shopping for a laptop too! Although no one would (I don't think) choose a laptop based on the desired bag, if you had an eye on a certain large sized laptop and you notice you can only get one or two bags that fit it, and there are 30 choices of smaller bags- it may sway you into choosing a more "standard" sized laptop.
Anway- kudos to ebags. I like the activity centered design.
WIDGETIZE