Kids are the future

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Kids are the future
by Bruno Laturner on Friday 23/Nov/2007, @05:03

Honestly, I believe this Kids Office will help KOffice as a whole, improving its usability.

Often a very simple interface, for a very different mindset of people, helps a whole class of applications to reach a breakthrough.

Some legends tell that GUIs, mouses and OOP(to code them) where developed for kids use.

Related Links

·   Articles on KDE Office Suite
·   Also by Bruno Laturner
·   Contact author

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Re: Kids are the future
by Nurul Choudhury on Friday 23/Nov/2007, @06:37

Much of the GUI interface we see today was created a Xerox PARC for SmallTalk. The language targeted kids. The basic philosophy of Alan Kay was to build an environment that kids would be able to learn programming.

http://gagne.homedns.org/~tgagne/contrib/EarlyHistoryST.html

The group at PARC was known as the 'Learning Research Group' and was heavily influences by LOGO a language designed bat MIT by Seymour Papert for teaching kids programming.

So you are right - looking at the world for a kids perspective forces you to think in pedagogic terms, to simplify, to link related concepts, introduce information in terms that can be easily learnt. Doing those things introduces a clarity that benefits not just kids but all users. I hope KDE in its entirety will take that approach.

KDE is trying to do a wonderful thing, but it is not the most attractive desktop in the world, I am sorry to say it is still rather ugly but powerful. Teat us all as kids and we will thank you for it.

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Re: Kids are the future
by Sum Yung Gai on Friday 23/Nov/2007, @10:40

However...don't do like GNOME and treat us like we're id10t's. Linus had a good point there. That's why I, too, stick with KDE, because it's full featured, but yet it doesn't try too hard to hide the power of the system from me. For example, tweaking MIME types on GNOME is a royal PITA (everything I've found says you've got to go to a terminal window to do it). By contrast, doing it on KDE is a snap and quite intuitive.

--SYG

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Re: Kids are the future
by Nurul Choudhury on Friday 23/Nov/2007, @13:54

I agree GNOME has gone too far when it comes to 'dumbing down' the interface, but on the other hand they have a more attractive 'IMHO'. But perhaps the system to learn form is OS X. The beauty and simplicity of the interface is astonishing. Let us not be too proud that we do not learn from other. Yet I do not suggest we blindly copy them.

Design the interface to be simple for kinds to understand yet powerful enough to satisfy the most demanding user. SmallTalk achieved that and more, let us make KDE do the same and we will have a system that is the envy of all and a gift to the world. Keep up the good work and I hope that the comments that I have written will ring a bell somewhere.

- without beauty we are nothing
- without power we are a slaves
- without simplicity we are lost

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Re: Kids are the future
by jospoortvliet on Saturday 24/Nov/2007, @13:51

Problem, of course, is that the beauty thing is subjective. Personally, I like the Ubuntu look and prefer it over Kubuntu. But I prefer Oxygen over both, and I think KDE 4 looks awesome. Apparently, you disagree.

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Re: Kids are the future
by Nurul Choudhury on Sunday 25/Nov/2007, @06:39

I have to be honest the only version of KDE4 I have tried is the Debian live CD for KDE beta4. I do not think that it had Oxygen theme in these. I am sure the Oxygen theme improves the look but that is not what I am talking about. It really has to do with fonts, layouts and the general feel of the environment.

I am not saying in any way the KDE is bad, far from it I think the system is an amazing achievement it terms of capability offered to end users. The presentation of KDE really does look like 'developers' put the visuals together and not visual designers. It is not a criticism of 'developers' - I have been one for more years than I care to remember. It is that you would not use a doctor to do the job of a lawyer would you?

One of the most interesting aspects of KDE is Plasma. The most interesting aspect is that it gives visual designers to create the interface and the look of the applets. For KDE to really reach new aesthetic heights there has to be a way for all applications to have their interface look and layout be created by graphic artists and interface designers. I wish I could tell you how that would be done; but making that a stated goal of KDE 4.x would bring far smarter minds than mine to the issue of creating a visually beautiful interface as well a an ergonomic one.

Open source has come a long way in this arena.

Installation was difficult in the past – now it is simply amazing
Configuring the system was difficult – now it get getting easier and easier
Drivers and hardware interface was a challenge – now it is very good
Fonts were ugly – it has been steadily improving

What I am saying is the open source has met and excelled at every challenge thrown at it yet many more remain. Ultimately it is the ‘Red Queen’ problem, as you get better the bar keeps rising – welcome to the real world.

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