[IxDA Discuss] more new desktop IxD

[Kevin Wong]

When developing for "southern" countries, wouldn't it be more  
appropriate to do more ethnographic studies and see what the actual  
behaviors are when integrating technology into their lifestyle?  As  
designers, for the most part, we work in environments that support  
advanced computing technology.  Do we really _know_ the interactions  
in these kinds of environments? The thought of doing it "like Steve  
Jobs" for such a large population with an entirely new (somewhat  
tested?) GUI for children is... bold.

I'm also curious if they considered some kind of technology probe to  
just observe the behavioral impact of technology within their
environment?

This article reminded me of an entry by Jan Chipchase (http:// 
www.janchipchase.com/sharedphoneuse) and it was amazing how different  
mobile phones were used.  Can we expect these children to use this  
laptop like we do? Granted the economical constraints influenced this  
pattern of usage, isn't the XO laptop placed in the same boat? Maybe  
we can learn something about this.

Btw, I thought they took out the hand crank because they were afraid  
children wouldn't be able to generate enough torque to generate  
sufficient power over prolonged period of time.

And lastly, there's this video of the xo machine in action for those  
curious: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DwzCsOFxT-U&mode=related&search=


Just some thoughts..

-Kevin

On Mar 1, 2007, at 1:41 PM, Matt Theakston wrote:

> jacob nielsons comment "outright reckless" is interesting regarding  
> the
> research and user testing. It makes me think of the parallel with the
> motofone. I had listened to richard schatzberger talk about the amount
> of research for motofone at the world usability day here in chicago  
> last
> year. seems to me that designing a device for developing countries  
> would
> require more testing and research than usual. Seems a little scary  
> a load of
> MIT people making assumptions about young kids needs in distant  
> countries,
> but perhaps more research was completed than described in that  
> article(or
> maybe not). A brave bit of work nonetheless though.
>
> i'm new posting by the way, although have been reading the  
> discussions for a
> little while! So hello all.
>
> Matt
>
>
> On 3/1/07, pauric <radiorental at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> "Not your ordinary desktop."
>>
>> I'm sure thats a slip, but its not a 'desktop' interface.  Its a  
>> focused
>> ACD
>> design.  Do one thing and do it well - so barring any glaring
>> design-by-committee no-no's it should be more user friendly than a  
>> tub of
>> ben and jerrys.
>>
>> However, read somewhere today that some countries, who are rightly
>> concerned
>> about theft-blackmarket, have got the design changed so it will  
>> disable
>> itself in some circumstances.  Firstly the device must be  
>> registered over
>> the net within a period, then if reported stolen it gets disabled  
>> from a
>> central server.
>>
>> While this is all well and good it falls in to design flaw of not  
>> trusting
>> the user, you're guilty until you prove yourself innocent.  And,  
>> with a
>> lot
>> of the target countries having less than stellar access to the net  
>> I think
>> there are going to be a lot of peeved kiddies with green/white  
>> bricks.
>> Also, I have to question the possible disconnect between the  
>> bureaucrats
>> who
>> requested this feature and the capabilities of these countries to  
>> manually
>> administer lists of stolen serial numbers and then broadcast  
>> licensing
>> flags.
>>
>> fwiw there are no current plans to sell this in western markets.
>> ________________________________________________________________



Kevin Wong Student IxDesigner at UW Informatics - kvwong.com/blog
contact | kevinwong at kvwong.com - 425.894.9211 aim | kdubz313