IVB's kids get their own GUI

[IVB]

Well, I built a very cheap PC for the 5yr old (and her 3yr old sister), as I thought they were old enough to start learning this stuff. Here's the physical pics.

There's not nearly enough pink to suit them, they want to get a pink mousepad, and I promised them i'd spray paint the monitor frame pink after 30 days, once the dust had settled. (no, not joking!). You'll note that I got a 15" LCD with VESA mounting. I picked up a $35 articulating arm mount off eBay, it's pretty decent. moves every which way. They can push it back when not in use.

I accept that they might break the LCD, but they're both girlie girls, so the odds are low. Plus, I need to stop shielding them and let them make their own mistakes, although that's certainly a hard thing for a father of 2 girls to do

And, here's a pic of the main screen:

So my daughter was using her new PC today for the first time, directly behind me, when she said completely without prompting: "Daddy, when are you going to let me play CDs by myself"? No joke. I hadn't mentioned it to her before, total freak coincidence. (although I did say to myself - "atta girl"). I happened to be working on a filtered CD screen for her, so I said "how about in an hour". She saw the vladstudio.com art, and said that it was nice. I asked her if she liked it, and she wanted to see the others. Well, VladStudio.com has 45ish pieces in his "The Two" collection, which is typically what I stick with. Of course, look at the one she picked out for the CD screen. On the upside, after I finished it, she looked at the whole screen, and it made sense to her. ("atta girl")

The way it works is that:
1) Pressing a zone button will turn on that zone and automatically set the input to CD. (That way XM can't be played by her)
2) The Louder/Quieter buttons have if-then logic behind it, and any of those 3 zones currently on will be adjusted by one decibel.
3) Pressing the "Games" button takes you back to the prior screen.

 

[BraveSirRobbin]

If she likes the artwork that much, why not randomly show different ones on the desktop? That way she will look forward to seeing what different ones will come up.

 

[IVB]

Because there's only one that's that pink!

Seriously, she's just starting with PCs, so better to keep things consistent (ie, pink button takes you to the pink screen, blue button takes you to the blue screen). She's very much like her mom where she values consistency and predictability over anything cool.

 

[Smarty]

She's very much like her mom where she values consistency and predictability over anything cool.

.....You just gotta love those women :lol:

 

[lathanm]

Looks pretty cool. It is nice to have customized interfaces for specific users and rooms. Really cuts down on confusion.

 

[DavidL]

Funny you mention that, Lathanm
"It is nice to have customized interfaces for specific users and rooms. Really cuts down on confusion. "
When I was at EHX in Long Beach, I met with some MCE2005 advocates (one very high end PC manufacturer centric on MCE) that did not see the merit to that at all. Their belief is that all user interfaces (not just in the one house, but all houses....) should look and act identical to reduce confusion and learning curve.

Of course, my take on that was that he never has lived with a customizable one to understand why my 2yr daughter would not want a MCE2005 interface. Her's is similar to IVB's daughters, though one notch simpler due to the age difference.

Lots of opinions.

 

[IVB]

I'm in between the builders and LathanM on that one. The daughter is the exception, not the rule. What I do is to have different startup overlays and different stereo controls, but everything else is identical.

For example, here's the Family room startup screen:

And here's the touchscreen startup screen in the kitchen:

 

[lathanm]

Funny you mention that, Lathanm
"It is nice to have customized interfaces for specific users and rooms. Really cuts down on confusion. "
When I was at EHX in Long Beach, I met with some MCE2005 advocates (one very high end PC manufacturer centric on MCE) that did not see the merit to that at all. Their belief is that all user interfaces (not just in the one house, but all houses....) should look and act identical to reduce confusion and learning curve.

This is one of those big usability/design splits that has no real end. I have a friend that teaches interface design that can go on for hours about the problems on both sides. She finally boils it down to 2 things usability and target audience.

On the usability side as long as you can shrink the number of commands or place the controls in logical groups it doesn't matter where they are on the screen. For example as long as the rewind is on the left or below play and fast forward is on the right or above and number pads are arranged in 12 key sets users understand the functions.

Target audience comes into the look and feel of the interface. The more you know about your audience the better you can design for them. In this case children look at things totally differently than adults. If you narrow your audience it is easier to get things right. The more complex the thing you are wanting to control the hard it is to design it for a broad audience. To get around this you need more button presses which is something you want to avoid. Finding that happy medium is tough and as far as I can tell the MCE UI isn't it.

Side note: I hope that guy you talked to never gets a chance to talk to any car manufactures. Design differences are one of the biggest separators between models.