No, the way to correct info is if the information makes sence! I don't care if "peer review" says the flat earth model is right and the round earth model is wrong. I want what is right, not what is popular.
If the most important thing worth saying about your new president is that it's a woman, then that gives me pretty low confidence in your new president.
How come we don't see, "MIT's new president developed theory X, was first to Y, and happens to be a woman"?
I need to clarify what I mean by "actually new". By actually new, I mean not existing before, compared to not popular, or not streamlined. For example I consider cell phones being lighter and cheaper as cell phones being "streamlined". Obviously the internet it not new, It's been there for a long time, but it's popularity has just increased. (for better or worse).
So I agree that we have changes, but just no technology that affects everyday life seems to be really new. I see things that come from WWII, the cold war (apollo project), or computer technology that comes from the 1960's (go look up "lisp machines" for solutions to many current issues in programing languages), or from XEROX parc (was that the 70's?), but no really new stuff.
When people predict what things will be like in the future, it's often very wrong (think 2001, and "space 2000?" (that show where they were flying the moon around the universe)). And this then feels wierd. I think we need to relabel them as what we can do by then, not what we will do.
My prediction that what we will actually do is make cell phones gaudier, some current technologies will get "streamlined", the cars will stay on the ground, and we'll remain technologically stagnant, using old technologies with more marketing annoyances like always.
(think about what's in our day to day lives that's actually new in the last 10 years or so. The more I learn about computer science, the more I realize that most of the time we are re-discoving solutions to problems that were solved decades ago)
It sounds wierd that their changing the OS could be a problem with the OS, but the problem is that windows, while it has multiple users, it dosn't really seem to use them, and everything gets installed as root (with permission to everything).
When windows 2000 came out I was like "thank god, now it's multi user". So I went to install everything as guest, so as to not hose the main machine. Needless to say it didn't work, as most things wouldn't install as guest, assuming that you'd install them as root.
When something is being installed little popup boxes should come up like "This application is trying to install something into the kernel, this is needed when installing hardware, as it needs to install a driver for the hardware, but if you are installing something other then the CD that came with a piece of hardware, then whatever this is that your installing has easy access to screwing up your machine.
Would you like to install it? "
The same goes for write acccess to all the differnt areas that they could be playing with libraries or whatever. Areas including who gets to write to the network! (say goodbye to addware).
Of course, this only works to notifiy people what they bought after they bought it. How do we people from buying stuff they refuse to use? Well if the copy protections working, these things should allow returns.
Summary:For those who might not make it all the way though, this post is about why current educational games have problems, then talks about what can we do about it.
So far I've seen mostly comments about poverty. First I'll sumarize what i've seen commented so far about educational games themselves.
First, someone posted the link to http://lrnj.com/, which is a 2D role playing game, for learning japanese. I've tried this game. This game is a good idea. Unfortunately, the game started out too hard for it to be any fun (for me), since I know nothing about japanese yet, and really had no interest untill i got the game. If you have enought interest in japanese that you know a little bit of it already, i'm sure it's great.
#1 there have only been a few educational games made. If I was to take a small random sampling of all games (not just popular games, all games), I bet they would probably suck too. What's the odds of picking doom3 out of a list of thousands of games?
#2 People who make "educational" games, often will have other agendas that may interefere with the fun of the game. For example, people who have the desire for "games to be educational", are often the same people who will wish that "games were non-violent". Obviously a game could become bad quick by mixing agendas. Also, their other agenda may take priority over the educational content of the game. In other words, it's not educational games people have problems with, it's the people who are the type to make them, which people have problems with.
#3 High risk games, don't get large budgets. When have you seen a educational game with grpahics that competed with quake3 (or whatever was currently popular at the time of it's release)? never? That's because the majority of the work spent on a game is in the graphics/artwork...
hmm. I've talked long enough. Maybe I'll stop here. The short version is:
We need cheaper ways of aquiring good artwork.
Maybe I'll write this out more and post it as a article.
I treid this game. This game is a good idea. Unfortunately, the game started out too hard for it to be any fun for me, since I know nothing about japanese yet, and really had no interest untill i got the game. If you have enought interest in japanese that you know a little bit of it already, i'm sure it's great.
Yes, that would be nice. Unfortunately for me, I seem to average spending between a half hour, and a hour each day getting stuck, and trying to find workarounds for lack of features in the gnome core desktop suite (desktop, nautilus, galeon, etc). The new user probably dosn't have the same problems as me. I'd like to see a system where everyone can be happy, and redundant work is minimized as much as possible.
There is a differnce between the examples you mention of designing for the disabled, and the user interface issues. Your examples are about adding a option. Like adding a ramp which you have a option to use, or adding a jar opener which you have a option to use. With gnome, with software interfaces we are worried about the *removal* of options. Sure, if you want to add a gnome paperclip, which I never have to see, but everyone else uses, that's fine. What i don't want is the lack of a option. In the disability analogy, I don't want a prothetic leg which i'm forced to use all the time. I already have 2 that work just fine!:)
Forks can be good when it's a licencing issue, or some unresolvable political issue. When bolth fork branches are under the GPL, it can split the number of developers you have working on the project, into working on the same thing in each branch. What is best is to have the two groups work in the same CVS tree, so they can share common code between them. What's even better is sharing the same binary, and using differnt profiles. (see my previous post in this article http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=116403&cid=985 2461)
If your wondering why i've thought about this so much, It's cause I went through the issue pretty comprehensively a long time ago with the dosemu project, and my again with my (bad) idea for a kernel fork.
I agree, we also have the factor that if all the advanced users hate it, then who's going to develop it? I think we should keep all the cool features in there, and have differnt profiles depending on who you are. so when you start it the first time a dialog comes up and says "do you want the stripped down "easy" interface, or the full version for "advanced" users".
If we make the system so it has a easily modifiable interface, then the semi-technical users, instead of bitching about it their problems, can change it how they think it should be. Once they have something they think is good, they send their moddified interface back to the developer, who includes a library of interfaces, with the one that is currently felt to be the best "newbie interface" set as default. This gives us tons of interface developers, rather then the few on the gnome project.
This is the whole open source idea over again. By allowing semi-techincal users to modify it, and use their moddifications, the world can recieve multiple interfaces, and people can choose the best one. presumably the developer would pick the easiest to use as the default for his applicaition, but if not people would change that when adding it as a package to thier distribution.
So by the time the "beta testing" is done, we have a prety good chance that a decent interface is on any paticular application. Even if the developers HCI skills suck. In fact probably multiple decent interfaces would exist for the multiple levels of sophistication in the user base of the app.
(much of this came from a post from last time, that hardly got read. (hopefully some people will see it this time. and maybe i'll build up karma:)
I hadn't heard about mice having the syndrome before. Are these novel prions? i.e. are they creating a new thing that's similar to mad cow, but differnt and never before seen? Since these things can be transmitted from one group of animals to another, (i believe it's sheep and cows that can trade it, and cows and humans that can trade it, but not humans and sheep directly (is that right?)) I'm just hoping that there careful not to contract it to a new animal population in the wild. It might come back to us through a animal other then cows.
I've personally encountered this issue before, and what would make the differnce for me would be scriptable interfaces. If once I solved a problem, I could write a script to do it the next time i encountered it, it would take the monotany out of hitting the same keystroke sequence over and over again.
I'll elaborate with a example. When i played one of the phantasy star games (long time ago), i started the game fighting the chirpers (little birds with practially 1 hit point) that would attack me as i walked around. Later I went to new places that had more difficult monsters which matched my improved guys. But later on, i got ran into a dead end (i needed to sole how to get through), and had to travel back from the planet i was on, and traverse across the entire surface of the planet i started on, to go look for clues. This would have been ok, if i hadn't been attacked by chirpers every 20 feet. I would kill them in one hit, but it would take over 200 button presses (attack button) to walk from one place to another. Now i really didn't even care about the battle strategy, I just didn't want to have to get involved unless the guys i was fighting were above a certain power.
The end of the story is that I gave up on phantasy star and never went back to it.
Same problem goes for Final Fantasy X, but there i care about battle strategy... it's just the same strategy *20* times as i battle the exact same configuration of monsters throught the level. oh joy! just want i wanted to do, hit the same button sequence i hit the previous 19 times! (sourcasm:)
Anyway, the scriptable interfaces could eliminate a majority of the burden, wihtout reducing the intelectual challenge of the game.
I agree, most non-technical users don't want to spend any time building the interface. They want it to be good to begin with. The developer would take a stab at makeing a interface and release with that, exactly the same way that is happening right now. But if the system has a easily modifiable interface, then the semi-technical users, instead of bitching about it, can change it how they think it should be. Once they have something they think is good, they send their moddified interface back to the developer, who includes a library of interfaces, with the one that is currently felt to be the best "newbie interface" set as default.
This is the whole open source idea over again. By allowing semi-techincal users to modify it, and use their moddifications, the world can recieve multiple interfaces, and people can choose the best one. presumably the developer would pick the easiest to use as the default for his applicaition, but if not people would change that when adding it as a package to thier distribution.
So by the time the "beta testing" is done, we have a prety good chance that a decent interface is on any paticular application. Even if the developers HCI skills suck. In fact probably multiple decent interfaces would exist for the multiple levels of sophistication in the user base of the app.
And good point about the uniformity. That will be a critical element that determines wether it is worth it for the user to spend his time learning the interface building system.
The article is a nice start, but I don't see his solution of FAQ's and HOWTO's (while a nice idea, and worth implementing) as something that will get used on a major scale.
If you want better interfaces, then lower the cost of implementing interfaces, and let the users build thier own the OSS way. Let me illistrate with a example:
Right now, I have found a interface feature which i believe would benifit natalus (the windows/mac file browsers too, but they are not of my concern). I realized the need, and thought of the idea. Now did i implement it? Hell no. I'm not about to spend all that time searching through the natalus source code, and coding in my idea, just to have it not be compatible with the next release.
What did I do? I wrote a letter, stating my idea, and am sending that...
What will become of this idea? well i sent a letter, and theres a good chance that the first person wont like it, or wont catch what i was intending if i didn't write my letter elegantly.
If anything happens to it, the next probability is that it gets passed to a bunch of developers, who will argue wether it is the optimum.
What's the alternative? Well, what if the visiable objects were accessable via a scripting language? A language that i could build a new interface to my applications on the fly, as it was running? This is what i've been waiting to see from gnome since i first heard of gnomes CORBA base. guile-scheme (the GNU choice for "extention langage" - see http://www.gnu.org/software/guile/guile.html)
But my point of this article is not to prop scheme. It's that by makeing interface design easier to change, that you'll get more moddifications & testing by the users.
Beyond just having the hooks in the scripting language, the next step in reducing teh cost of makeing new interfaces would be to have a builder for all the commonly implemented components. This wouldn't let you do everything you could want (and most of what I usually want) in a interface, but for some people who just want to move a button, this would be a godsend to the end users that can't even figure how to use a interpeted langauge.
Think of building the interface as a activity of the end user, not something to find your optimum interface via sets of prefabricated rules.
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No, the way to correct info is if the information makes sence! I don't care if "peer review" says the flat earth model is right and the round earth model is wrong. I want what is right, not what is popular.
How come we don't see, "MIT's new president developed theory X, was first to Y, and happens to be a woman"?
interesting.
So I agree that we have changes, but just no technology that affects everyday life seems to be really new. I see things that come from WWII, the cold war (apollo project), or computer technology that comes from the 1960's (go look up "lisp machines" for solutions to many current issues in programing languages), or from XEROX parc (was that the 70's?), but no really new stuff.
My prediction that what we will actually do is make cell phones gaudier, some current technologies will get "streamlined", the cars will stay on the ground, and we'll remain technologically stagnant, using old technologies with more marketing annoyances like always.
(think about what's in our day to day lives that's actually new in the last 10 years or so. The more I learn about computer science, the more I realize that most of the time we are re-discoving solutions to problems that were solved decades ago)
When windows 2000 came out I was like "thank god, now it's multi user". So I went to install everything as guest, so as to not hose the main machine. Needless to say it didn't work, as most things wouldn't install as guest, assuming that you'd install them as root.
When something is being installed little popup boxes should come up like "This application is trying to install something into the kernel, this is needed when installing hardware, as it needs to install a driver for the hardware, but if you are installing something other then the CD that came with a piece of hardware, then whatever this is that your installing has easy access to screwing up your machine.
Would you like to install it? "
The same goes for write acccess to all the differnt areas that they could be playing with libraries or whatever. Areas including who gets to write to the network! (say goodbye to addware).
Of course, this only works to notifiy people what they bought after they bought it. How do we people from buying stuff they refuse to use? Well if the copy protections working, these things should allow returns.
So far I've seen mostly comments about poverty. First I'll sumarize what i've seen commented so far about educational games themselves.
First, someone posted the link to http://lrnj.com/, which is a 2D role playing game, for learning japanese. I've tried this game. This game is a good idea. Unfortunately, the game started out too hard for it to be any fun (for me), since I know nothing about japanese yet, and really had no interest untill i got the game. If you have enought interest in japanese that you know a little bit of it already, i'm sure it's great.
Next, someone posted http://www.game-research.com/art_myths_of_gaming.a sp , which is a article basically saying that that educational aren't educational and aren't any fun. I see a few reasons for this.
#1 there have only been a few educational games made. If I was to take a small random sampling of all games (not just popular games, all games), I bet they would probably suck too. What's the odds of picking doom3 out of a list of thousands of games?
#2 People who make "educational" games, often will have other agendas that may interefere with the fun of the game. For example, people who have the desire for "games to be educational", are often the same people who will wish that "games were non-violent". Obviously a game could become bad quick by mixing agendas. Also, their other agenda may take priority over the educational content of the game. In other words, it's not educational games people have problems with, it's the people who are the type to make them, which people have problems with.
#3 High risk games, don't get large budgets. When have you seen a educational game with grpahics that competed with quake3 (or whatever was currently popular at the time of it's release)? never? That's because the majority of the work spent on a game is in the graphics/artwork...
hmm. I've talked long enough. Maybe I'll stop here. The short version is:
We need cheaper ways of aquiring good artwork.
Maybe I'll write this out more and post it as a article.
I treid this game. This game is a good idea. Unfortunately, the game started out too hard for it to be any fun for me, since I know nothing about japanese yet, and really had no interest untill i got the game. If you have enought interest in japanese that you know a little bit of it already, i'm sure it's great.
There is a differnce between the examples you mention of designing for the disabled, and the user interface issues. Your examples are about adding a option. Like adding a ramp which you have a option to use, or adding a jar opener which you have a option to use. With gnome, with software interfaces we are worried about the *removal* of options. Sure, if you want to add a gnome paperclip, which I never have to see, but everyone else uses, that's fine. What i don't want is the lack of a option. In the disability analogy, I don't want a prothetic leg which i'm forced to use all the time. I already have 2 that work just fine! :)
The several emacs forks would benifit from being in the same CVS, and possibly even some of the scheme versions of emacs like guile emacs http://gemacs.sourceforge.net/ would benifit from this. (whereas texmacs http://www.texmacs.org/tmweb/home/welcome.en.html would probably not.
If your wondering why i've thought about this so much, It's cause I went through the issue pretty comprehensively a long time ago with the dosemu project, and my again with my (bad) idea for a kernel fork.
If we make the system so it has a easily modifiable interface, then the semi-technical users, instead of bitching about it their problems, can change it how they think it should be. Once they have something they think is good, they send their moddified interface back to the developer, who includes a library of interfaces, with the one that is currently felt to be the best "newbie interface" set as default. This gives us tons of interface developers, rather then the few on the gnome project.
This is the whole open source idea over again. By allowing semi-techincal users to modify it, and use their moddifications, the world can recieve multiple interfaces, and people can choose the best one. presumably the developer would pick the easiest to use as the default for his applicaition, but if not people would change that when adding it as a package to thier distribution.
So by the time the "beta testing" is done, we have a prety good chance that a decent interface is on any paticular application. Even if the developers HCI skills suck. In fact probably multiple decent interfaces would exist for the multiple levels of sophistication in the user base of the app.
(much of this came from a post from last time, that hardly got read. (hopefully some people will see it this time. and maybe i'll build up karma :)
I hadn't heard about mice having the syndrome before. Are these novel prions? i.e. are they creating a new thing that's similar to mad cow, but differnt and never before seen? Since these things can be transmitted from one group of animals to another, (i believe it's sheep and cows that can trade it, and cows and humans that can trade it, but not humans and sheep directly (is that right?)) I'm just hoping that there careful not to contract it to a new animal population in the wild. It might come back to us through a animal other then cows.
I'll elaborate with a example. When i played one of the phantasy star games (long time ago), i started the game fighting the chirpers (little birds with practially 1 hit point) that would attack me as i walked around. Later I went to new places that had more difficult monsters which matched my improved guys. But later on, i got ran into a dead end (i needed to sole how to get through), and had to travel back from the planet i was on, and traverse across the entire surface of the planet i started on, to go look for clues. This would have been ok, if i hadn't been attacked by chirpers every 20 feet. I would kill them in one hit, but it would take over 200 button presses (attack button) to walk from one place to another. Now i really didn't even care about the battle strategy, I just didn't want to have to get involved unless the guys i was fighting were above a certain power.
The end of the story is that I gave up on phantasy star and never went back to it.
Same problem goes for Final Fantasy X, but there i care about battle strategy... it's just the same strategy *20* times as i battle the exact same configuration of monsters throught the level. oh joy! just want i wanted to do, hit the same button sequence i hit the previous 19 times! (sourcasm:)
Anyway, the scriptable interfaces could eliminate a majority of the burden, wihtout reducing the intelectual challenge of the game.
This is the whole open source idea over again. By allowing semi-techincal users to modify it, and use their moddifications, the world can recieve multiple interfaces, and people can choose the best one. presumably the developer would pick the easiest to use as the default for his applicaition, but if not people would change that when adding it as a package to thier distribution.
So by the time the "beta testing" is done, we have a prety good chance that a decent interface is on any paticular application. Even if the developers HCI skills suck. In fact probably multiple decent interfaces would exist for the multiple levels of sophistication in the user base of the app.
And good point about the uniformity. That will be a critical element that determines wether it is worth it for the user to spend his time learning the interface building system.
Right now, I have found a interface feature which i believe would benifit natalus (the windows/mac file browsers too, but they are not of my concern). I realized the need, and thought of the idea. Now did i implement it? Hell no. I'm not about to spend all that time searching through the natalus source code, and coding in my idea, just to have it not be compatible with the next release.
What did I do? I wrote a letter, stating my idea, and am sending that...
What will become of this idea? well i sent a letter, and theres a good chance that the first person wont like it, or wont catch what i was intending if i didn't write my letter elegantly.
If anything happens to it, the next probability is that it gets passed to a bunch of developers, who will argue wether it is the optimum.
What's the alternative? Well, what if the visiable objects were accessable via a scripting language? A language that i could build a new interface to my applications on the fly, as it was running? This is what i've been waiting to see from gnome since i first heard of gnomes CORBA base. guile-scheme (the GNU choice for "extention langage" - see http://www.gnu.org/software/guile/guile.html)
But my point of this article is not to prop scheme. It's that by makeing interface design easier to change, that you'll get more moddifications & testing by the users.
Beyond just having the hooks in the scripting language, the next step in reducing teh cost of makeing new interfaces would be to have a builder for all the commonly implemented components. This wouldn't let you do everything you could want (and most of what I usually want) in a interface, but for some people who just want to move a button, this would be a godsend to the end users that can't even figure how to use a interpeted langauge.
Think of building the interface as a activity of the end user, not something to find your optimum interface via sets of prefabricated rules.