OLPC Rochester, NY: Difference between revisions

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== Project ideas ==
== Project ideas ==
===Usability testing===
===Usability testing===
Consider the potential topic areas or issues that might be prime for some usability testing. (Here is a quick review of usability testing, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usability_testing.)


See the [[OLPC_Rochester%2C_NY/Usability_testing_class_project|Usability testing class project]] page for the project description, work documents, and reports.
Professor Keith Karn in the [http://it.rit.edu/it/ Information Technology Department] of the Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT) in Rochester, NY will have 4-5 graduate students (from his class of 20) propose, and over the next 10 weeks, execute a usability testing consultation around the XO or OLPC project. The class met for the first time on Wednesday 12 March 2008, and will meet, as a whole, every Wednesday 6-9:50 pm EDT through 21 May 2008. This OLPC project team will be asked to review the [[The_OLPC_Wiki|wiki.laptop.org]] and then contact [[User:FGrose|Frederick Grose]], serving as client representative. Because of the academic schedule, we need to review and select a testing topic area by [[20 March]] and have a final testing plan by [[26 March]] [[2008]].

What usability issue is currently most timely and significant to the project? Since OLPC is developing a new information and communication technologies platform, there are many possibilities for significant target users, subsystems, components, and activities.
:I suggest starting first with observing general usage of the Sugar shell and base activities (Browse, Read, Write, Paint and Journal) and move from there to other activities. At this point, I don't think more focused testing will be as useful. --[[:User:Tomeu|Tomeu]] 08:14 [[20 March]] [[2008]]

We have a few G1G1 XOs in Rochester that we should be able to use for live testing with local children. Larger scale tests could be performed with emulated XOs or hosted Sugar in the RIT Usability Laboratories. The class will be expected to go through the human subject reviews as required.

Because so many cultural variables may be important modifiers of understanding user interactions with the OLPC project, perhaps there may be some more basic or common psycho-physical aspects of usability we could focus on that would be timely and significant for the project. Or, we might be able to recruit user participants from one of the recently settled immigrant communities in the Rochester area to delve into the internationalization and cultural domains.
:Having different groups of children based on age and previous contact with computers may be more important than cultural differences, in my opinion. --[[:User:Tomeu|Tomeu]] 08:14 [[20 March]] [[2008]]

Some reviewers of OLPC have been critical of the shortage of reported usability testing results, so far, however, if we appreciate the pace and resourcing of the development, perhaps this is a chance to address any gaps or curiosities that you may have.
:We have already had some feedback from the pilot tests, but until now and because of time and other constraints, hasn't been as systematic as we need. Having your commented observations about which tasks are more problematic would already be extremely useful. --[[:User:Tomeu|Tomeu]] 08:14 [[20 March]] [[2008]]

Please think about the project design needs, possibilities, and constraints, and suggest topics or issues below:
:I'm afraid now is not a good moment to ask a big involvement from the Sugar developers, but I'm sure we'll make our best at answering more concrete questions that you have. Thanks and good luck, --[[:User:Tomeu|Tomeu]] 08:14 [[20 March]] [[2008]]


*I do have a suggestion for the actual usability testing. This situation seems appropriate for having two children at a time do the tasks. The conversation between them when doing the tasks should yield richer information than a typical think aloud from one person. --[http://www.usabilityassociates.com Stan Caplan] 17:18 13 Mar 2008
*I would suggest possibly breaking up the usability studies into two parts. The first part as a formative usability study just to see what children do with the OLPC and if they understand what tasks they can do or want to do on the OLPC. Many of these OLPCs may be handed to children without much explanation and it would be interesting to see what children do with the computer when they first encounter it. Is it intuitive? The second part would be the more formal usability testing with the most common tasks. --[mailto:amy.x.chen@oracle.com Amy Chen] 8:15 20 Mar 2008
*


===Other ideas===
===Other ideas===

Revision as of 01:25, 21 November 2008

OLPC Rochester, NY


a local grassroots group



About

The Rochester, NY interest group is a way for people in the Rochester, New York area and surrounding locations to talk about and work together on OLPC projects or activities. This is a page for those interested in volunteering or contributing to the project.

A discussion thread, OLPC Rochester, NY has been started on forum.laptop.org.

To receive updates to this page, log in / create an OLPC wiki user account (at the top rightmost link of any wiki page), then use the 'my preferences' link on your account to enter a private email address and select the option to receive email whenever a page you're watching is changed. Finally, click the watch tab at the top of this page to include it in your watchlist.

OLPC Rochester, NY is

  • just beginning to organize.
  • a wiki page open for use by all interested parties in the Rochester area.

OLPC Rochester, NY is not

Chapters

If you know of any Rochester area schools, organizations, or groups of interested people who have organized or want to organize a Grassroots group or an university, college, or school chapter, please ask them to add a link below.

Existing projects

Usability Testing with RIT course #4004-749 12 March - 21 May 2008

Events

OLPC XO user's group meeting at the Rochester Institute of Technology - (See the Flyer.pdf.)

The Lab for Technological Literacy at RIT is supporting the OLPC XO Laptop project by raising awareness locally and conducting research and development initiatives.

RIT will be forming a OLPC XO Laptop user's group in January of 2009.

All meetings will take place in B. Thomas Golisano College of Computing and Information Sciences, Building 70, Golisano Auditorium, Rm 1400, (See RIT Building 70 Google Map, or campus maps at http://inside.rit.edu/maps/.)

7:00 pm - 8:50 pm, on the 4th Thursday of the month.

Please join us on the following dates:

  • 22 January 2009
  • 26 February 2009
  • 26 March 2009
  • 23 April 2009
  • 28 May 2009


Past events

Project ideas

Usability testing

See the Usability testing class project page for the project description, work documents, and reports.

Other ideas

If you're in the Rochester area and want to work on a project with someone local, post ideas here.
  • your idea...