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A 2.5 Year-Old Has A First Encounter with An iPad

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Re: A 2.5 Year-Old Has A First Encounter with An iPad

#61

Post by anigbrowl »

ique wrote: post #52
aphyr wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. Coming from android, the ipad app-switching interface feels cumbersome.

A couple of weeks ago everyone in the administration of the school my mom works at got Android phones. Only about 2-3 people understood anything the phone had to offer of about a dozen people. They recently had to take the entire administration through a full-day course on how to use the phone. Do you think this 2 year old could understand the android platform as easily as she does iPhone OS?

I think this tells us more about education administrators than cellphones :-/

Re: A 2.5 Year-Old Has A First Encounter with An iPad

#62

Post by jacquesm »

For the longest time the mantra in good user interface design has been 'make it so a three year old can use it'. This video so proves that to be a true thing. I always try to find people that have as little exposure to computers as possible when trying out new stuff, I never actually thought of taking that literally and employing toddlers as testers, but after this video I'm 100% convinced that's the way to go.

Re: A 2.5 Year-Old Has A First Encounter with An iPad

#64

Post by div »

ique wrote: post #52
aphyr wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. Coming from android, the ipad app-switching interface feels cumbersome.

A couple of weeks ago everyone in the administration of the school my mom works at got Android phones. Only about 2-3 people understood anything the phone had to offer of about a dozen people. They recently had to take the entire administration through a full-day course on how to use the phone. Do you think this 2 year old could understand the android platform as easily as she does iPhone OS?

Why not ? Seems like she's proficient in using the iPad because she already was iPhone savvy, as mentioned by the blogpost.

Given some time with an Android device, I think she would do just as well sampling apps on Android as she did on iPhone OS. Her way of launching an app, playing around and then pressing the Home button would work on Android just as fine.

I also believe there's quite a difference between a 2.5 year old playing around with an OS, and adults who may not be tech-savvy using a smartphone in a meaningful way.

Or to phrase it as a question, do you think those people would have as much trouble understanding the iPhone OS as they did the Android OS ?

Re: A 2.5 Year-Old Has A First Encounter with An iPad

#65

Post by anigbrowl »

ajj wrote: post #47
tullius wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A friend told me his kids now try to use iphone hand motions on other screens they encounter and are surprised when they don't work. Same age group.

I have often used my finger trying to scroll on a GPS screen, only realizing it doesn't work a few seconds into it.

You think that's bad...I tried to click a hyperlink in a book the other evening. OK, it was 2am and I'd been looking up supplementary material online to complement my page reading for several hours, but still.

Re: A 2.5 Year-Old Has A First Encounter with An iPad

#66

Post by prawn »

whatusername wrote: post #49
edo wrote: post #4

It's amazing how fast she grasps the concept of the UI. Either she has some experience with an iPhone, or we have gotten to a point where interface design has become so intuitive that 3-year olds grasp software immediately. I think the first is the case, but impressive nonetheless ;-)

:) At 2 I've been told that I could find out the Print-Shop-Pro disk, put it in the Apple Mac Plus and do my own drawings. I'd then save my work and wait for mummy/daddy to wake up so I could print - I wasn't able to line up the paper properly in the printer. Moral of the Story: Kids are smarter than you think. (And they don' have a phobia of technology so they are willing to try anything)

"And they don' have a phobia of technology so they are willing to try anything"

Heard it suggested once that the reason older people are reluctant to explore and experiment with computers is that in their day, experimenting with the machinery of the time could mean a severed finger or lost limb.

Re: A 2.5 Year-Old Has A First Encounter with An iPad

#67

Post by aphyr »

ique wrote: post #52
aphyr wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. Coming from android, the ipad app-switching interface feels cumbersome.

A couple of weeks ago everyone in the administration of the school my mom works at got Android phones. Only about 2-3 people understood anything the phone had to offer of about a dozen people. They recently had to take the entire administration through a full-day course on how to use the phone. Do you think this 2 year old could understand the android platform as easily as she does iPhone OS?

Familiarity and learnability are not the only rubrics for UI design.

While it's good to make products understandable by two-year-olds, there are other important considerations in UI. Can it help you accomplish the task efficiently? Reliably? Happily? Vim, for example would never stand up to the two-year-old test, but is nonetheless an extraordinarily capable and efficient text editor--which qualifies it, in my opinion, for "good UI".

I don't mean to imply Android is as readily cognizable to toddlers as the iPhone. What I mean to say is that streaming quickly from activity to activity through various stateless apps, each of which can plug into each other for various intents, is a more efficient way to accomplish tasks than quitting and re-opening apps from the home screen.

Re: A 2.5 Year-Old Has A First Encounter with An iPad

#68

Post by potatolicious »

prawn wrote: post #66
whatusername wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

:) At 2 I've been told that I could find out the Print-Shop-Pro disk, put it in the Apple Mac Plus and do my own drawings. I'd then save my work and wait for mummy/daddy to wake up so I could print - I wasn't able to line up the paper properly in the printer. Moral of the Story: Kids are smarter than you think. (And they don' have a phobia of technology so they are willing to try anything)

"And they don' have a phobia of technology so they are willing to try anything" Heard it suggested once that the reason older people are reluctant to explore and experiment with computers is that in their day, experimenting with the machinery of the time could mean a severed finger or lost limb.

I've noticed that older folk are reluctant to explore/experiment because they're afraid they'll irreparably break it, which I suppose fits in the confines of mechanical machinery. Experimenting with your car may in fact break it in very, very messy/expensive ways.

There doesn't seem to be a clear understanding that short of taking a hammer to your computer, it's almost impossible to break...

Part of this is our fault also - we've allowed decades of software with bad defaults, no-warning data deletions, etc, and now people are afraid that a single stray button click will nuke their precious work.

Re: A 2.5 Year-Old Has A First Encounter with An iPad

#69

Post by skywalker »

Isn't the radiation dangerous for small children?

EDIT: whoa! I have been downvotted after asking if it is safe for children.

So, here are some references.

"Children have much thinner skull bones and their brains have a lot more fluid, so their brain tissues would likely absorb twice more radiation compared to an adult’s brain. But cellphone radiation standards set by the government remains the same for both groups." http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/tag/radiation/

"If the notebook is sitting on a child’s lap, that child is exposed to radio emissions comparable to that of a mobile phone. If the notebook is 20 cm away, the child is subjected to exposure of just 1% to that of a mobile phone" http://tech.blorge.com/Structure:%20/2007/04/29/warning-keep...

How about that?

Re: A 2.5 Year-Old Has A First Encounter with An iPad

#70

Post by ugh »

leviathant wrote: post #28
swombat wrote: post #15

Now try giving that 2.5 year old a Netbook with Windows on it and see how well that works.

Now try giving that 2.5 year old a violin and see how well that works. Now try giving that 2.5 year old a graphing calculator and see how well that works. Now try giving that 2.5 year old a drum kit and see how well that works. Now try giving that 2.5 year old canvas with a palette of oil paints and see how well that works.

You had me thinking there for a few minutes. Why exactly do I appreciate the ease of use of a iPad but would most certainly not appreciate the ease of use of a violin where you just tap a few times on a touchscreen and which then plays for you?

I think it has something to do with abstractions. There are no abstractions when playing a violin. You move the bow which causes strings to vibrate and that’s it. User Interfaces are built on abstractions. CLIs, mouse interfaces, touch interfaces, all are abstractions because nobody would want to edit a photo without those.

Just because the iPad uses different abstractions doesn’t mean it’s the computer version of my phony easy to use violin. I honestly think there are ways to improve our abstractions and the iPad might be a step in that direction. I also see no reason why a 2.5 year old shouldn’t be able to pick up at least some of those abstractions which are also fitting for grown-ups.

(I actually think that it’s possible to build better versions of that one example you mentioned that also uses abstractions: graphing calculators. Most graphing calculator level math is certainly too hard for 2.5 year olds, but when it comes to inputting stuff many graphing calculators suck. Incidentally, there is not a single great graphing calculator available for the iPhone. I really wanted one.)

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