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A Close(r) Look At OLPC Human Interface Guidelines

Posted by Hemos on from the making-the-audience-understand dept.

feranick writes "There have been a lot of articles on Slashdot about the OLPC project, most of them regarding the hardware, the social impact or the cost of the operation itself. However the software development, specifically in the GUI didn't get so far much attention. This blog summarizes some of the OLPC global interface guidelines. You will see that what is really new in the laptop is not the laptop itself, but the completely new idea behind the design, where instead of applications you have activities, documents are now journals, 'application bundles can be signed by whoever works on them — because there is a view source key on the keyboard, anybody can modify an app and distribute it'. It really looks like if this is successfully, we could see a new breakthrough in GUI design also in mainstream PCs: "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.""

5 of 152 comments (clear)

  1. Re:So why slag off MacOS? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

    There's also no reason for a Mac fanboy to get defensive about some blogger's offhand comment, unless -- again -- you're feeling insecure.

  2. View Source Key by jamesl · · Score: 5, Funny

    A View Source Key -- now there's a top level UI component that hundreds of millions of computer users have been begging for.

  3. Re:Letting 4 year olds mess with the code? by tttonyyy · · Score: 4, Funny

    Letting 4 year olds mess with the code? Of course - this is the new OBPC (One Brick Per Child) project!
    --
    biopowered.co.uk - catalytically cracking triglycerides for home automotive use since 2008. Just say no to big oil!
  4. Re:OG: Original GUI by BigBuckHunter · · Score: 2, Funny

    The new GUI might be revolutionary, and useful, and create the new paradigm. We should replace the ancient Mac GUI paradigm. So when we improve the paradigm

    You don't happen to be in management, do you? I believe you now hold the slashdot record for number of reoccurring uses of the word "paradigm" in a single non-Babylon-5 related post.

    BBH

  5. Re:Mod me whatever....but... by E++99 · · Score: 2, Funny
    These people eat well but they have nothing to do. They just sit around during the summer and talk, as there is no extra water for farming, no economy to support, and no need to do anything other than talk. Everyone is doing just fine.

    As a side - those people were some of the happiest people I have ever met. They were not hungry, were not in a hurry, never spent much time indoors, never needed anything more than what they had.

    THIS IS MORE URGENT THAN I THOUGHT!!! WE MUST SEND THEM LAPTOPS SO THEY STOP SITTING AROUND TALKING AND BEING HAPPY!!!