Front to back

A great quote from an OLPC spokesman about why some governments are not following through on ordering educational laptops from the OLPC initiative.

"It has not been that processor versus that processor or that operating system versus that operating system - it's been small thinking versus big thinking. That's really the issue.

Change equals risk especially for politicians. And we are certainly advocating change because the [education] system is failing these children."

However, a Nigeria's education minister replies,

"What is the sense of introducing One Laptop per Child when they don't have seats to sit down and learn; when they don't have uniforms to go to school in, where they don't have facilities?"

Maybe you don't need a seat or a uniform or a roof to engage productively with a computer. Purveyors of mobile computing in developed countries are trying to convince us of that. But other studies say hyper-mobility is a myth: you need somewhere safe and quiet before you can do any real thinking. Maybe it just depends on the person, and the context they are used to existing in.

See the BBC News article: Politics 'stifling $100 laptop'

There's also some great video and a wonderful slideshow of trials in Nigeria.

Crayon Physics is an amazing little game that has attracted a lot of attention. It's wonderful fun to play and it can teach us a little bit about interaction design too. Thanks to Aoife Ni Mhorain for pointing this one out.

Experimental game play

Petri Purho is a student at Helsinki polytechnic. He has set himself the task of producing a new game every week - and each one has to test out a different form of experimental gameplay.

With Crayon Physics, Petri appears to have hit on a winning idea. He's had such demand for a more complete version that that he's had to break his own rules and work on a version that will take more than 7 days. There's a very cool video of it here.

Get out your crayons

As you can see in the pictures, Crayon Physics is styled to look like crayon drawing on an old piece of paper. You create new objects by drawing them - sticks, blocks and balls. And the moment you create those objects they gain physical properties. The fall, they topple, they roll, they land on top of each other.

Fun! And the lessons are?

Lesson 1: Good interaction design builds on things we are familiar with

We're familiar with all sorts of objects and rules about the world. A folder holds documents. You can put sheets of paper on top of each other on your desk. And you can throw them away in a trash can. The original Xerox PARC interfaces showed how computing could be made approachable by using on-screen metaphors for everyday objects and actions: folders, windows, trashcans.

Crayon physics is easy to learn because it uses the laws of physics we already know. Things fall, things land on top of each other, heavy things can be used to lever light things.

More recently, Apple has been pioneering some advances in this space by incorporating "physics", now very advanced in the world of 3D games, into its software. The iPhone/iPod interface provides "momentum" - if you're scrolling through a long list, a good flick of the finger will keep the scrolling going for a while until you put on the brakes again with a stationary finger.

Lesson 2: We want cave-man magic

Everything that computers do for us is to some extent magical. We can create beautifully typeset documents, we can communicate instantly over large distances, and we can move mountains of data with minimal effort.

Drawing a crayon picture and having it come to life is magical. Much more magical than word processing. I think that's because the activity that crayon physics is simulating is much closer to our most primitive human ways of thinking. Typing on a qwerty keyboard is quite an unnatural thing for us humans, and its history comes from interacting with heavy, mechanical machines. Drawing with a rough coloured stick is very primitive and very appropriate to the way our cave-man brains evolved. Seeing our basic scribbles transformed into moving objects feels very magical indeed.

The next generation of user interfaces, with multitouch and gestures, are all tapping into this. Using two hands to drag, stretch and pinch gets right back to the fundamental activities out brains evolved to perform. And it feels great.

Lesson 3: Sketch prototyping is a great way to think

I wrote recently about the power of sketch prototypes. And Crayon Physics illustrates the point. Some of the puzzles are hard to solve, especially on some of the add-on levels. But you can try out different ideas with very quick sketches and it really helps you build a solution. Sketching really is a great way to think.

Anyway - enjoy Crayon Physics. And If you get bored of that, the Experimental Game play Project has about 360 other innovative games to try. I think I'll try "Tower of Goo" next...

• Kloonigames: Download Crayon Physics
• Experimental Gameplay project

I'm excited. I've just registered for Designing Interactive Systems 2008, in Cape Town, South Africa.

It's at least partially about interaction design for less developed countries. Here's a key chunk of blurb:

"At DIS 2008 we want to bring together people from different cultures and understand how designs and techniques employed in affluent high-technology environments can be translated to relatively poor environments to be used by people with relatively low literacy levels. Due to the prevalence of cellular handsets throughout the continent, many Africans are now having their first experience of interactive technology. We believe that DIS 2008 will be an important step in understanding how to design interactive systems for these new users."

It's a huge and wicked topic, and I'm looking forward to learning more about it.

For now, here are a few interesting dimensions:

• Emerging economies are big, so designing for them is terribly important. Mobile phone manufacturers have been exploiting the massive growth in emerging markets for at least a couple of years now. In Q3 of 2007 Nokia sold nearly 112 million devices, and reports that sales of handsets in emerging markets have soared. The number of Chinese Internet users was estimated in June 2007 to be 162 million people.
• Some developing economies have developed further than others. Does interaction design really have any relevance to people living on a dollar a day or less? I can't see it. At the base of Maslow's pyramid, people have more pressing concerns. But there are emerging market economies, newly industrialised economies and less developed countries to consider. So its important not to reject ideas that can work well for one group or environment, just because it won't suit others.
• OLPC is a great case study. Is it the biggest, brashest example of ill-informed western ideals meeting "third world" reality? Or will the kid-powered network triumph over geographical, cultural and political constraints and help a new generation to learn by doing? It's interesting to watch.As discussed above, there are some countries where it won't work. Spending money on digital technology makes no sense when you don't have books, a teacher or a reliable source of clean water.
• Opportunities look different in each place. In South Africa, only 8% of people can get online from home. A lot of the population can't afford the high local price of broadband, or the cost of a computer to plug into it. There are a range of interesting results. 3G is more popular, and mobile operators subsidise laptops, as well as handsets. There's also a community that relies strongly on internet cafes for getting online.In Nigeria, where conditions are different again, you can buy a goat and pay by transferring mobile airtime minutes.

So - designing for developing contexts is complicated. Just like any form of design. And the only sound approach is to do contextual research, to make sure really understand the reality of whatever niche you're designing for.

DIS 2008 is at the end of February. I'll blog about what I learn.

On the 12th November, the One Laptop Per Child initiative will begin a limited "give one get one" programme. For $399, people in the USA can buy an XO1 laptop for themselves, and at the same time have one donated for use in a developing country.

This seems to be because OLPC isn't going to sell nearly as many units as expected to governments of developing countries. There was lots of nodding and smiling when Nicholas Negroponte talked to the world's education ministers and heads of state, but not much signing on the dotted line.

A good while back the Indian Ministry Of Human Resource Development rejected the XO1 as "pedagogically suspect." China also rejected it. For both countries, reasons are more likely to be political than pedagogical - but whatever the reasons, they are big markets to lose.

The Libyan government's promised order is not materialising.

"I have to some degree underestimated the difference between shaking the hand of a head of state and having a check written," said Nicholas Negroponte, chairman of the nonprofit project. "And, yes, it has been a disappointment."

Competitive pressure

The competition aren't hanging around.

Intel's Classmate is making headway, and the pricepoint is not far from that of OLPC. Intel doesn't want to see the global educational computing market dominated by the OLPC's AMD chips. There are allegations of Nigeria switching allegiance to Intel after some shady dealings.

Microsoft have similar concerns to Intel. They're working on a version of windows that will install on the XO hardware.

Not that there is much XO hardware yet. Manufacturing has got off to a slow start. There are not going to be enough machines to satisfy Paraguay's order by Christmas. (Paraguay loves OLPC - and they are putting their money where mouth is).

OLPC supporters called for a change of sales tactics and a new initiative to "get them out in the market." The belief is that the XO1 laptops will prove themselves once people can see them in action. Hence the "Give 1 Get 1" idea.

I still love this project

I'm a big fan of this project - even though everyone tells me I'm an idealistic fool.

I personally want and XO1. I'm pondering whether to ask my friend in the states to get me one. Why?

• They are wonderful objects, well designed by committed, talented people

• They represent a vision for kid-powered education that transcends politics, propaganda, race, class, poverty and geography. There's power in networks that delivers unexpected, astonishing results. Look at Google, Facebook or the blogsphere. I want to see that happen again. (I think I may be a constructivist).

• In spite of all the controversy no one is saying that the user experience of the machine itself is anything other than wonderful.

A report from research in India...

"Even when English and Marathi are so different, even when the keyboard is in English, even when the interface is in English, even when we don't speak each other's language, and even when they are so new to computers, the XO is so user-friendly that I can manage to get across to them, to show them how to do something with it. And in little time, and having lots of fun, the children of a completely different language are doing this or that on their XOs."

A headmistress in Nigeria...

"You know education is not static. Education changes, and as it changes the world it self changes. The way I passed through education is not to compare with nowadays education. Also children themselves today are more curious than before."

Harsh realities

Well, the debate rages on. And I mean rages!

It looks like a very rocky road ahead for the XO1. All the designers I know in Africa say the XO1 doesn't stand a snowball's chance in hell. Life out here is just too tough, they say.

A sobering example: XO1s can run on Solar power. But the networks that support them can't. They need generators.

"From the Nigeria Chapter of the Club of Rome, we learn that the generator has to be stored in the principal's office to prevent theft, requires costly gasoline, and servicing that can take days. Worst of all, the generator broke down, burning out the UPS for the Internet, and its still insufficient for all the power needs of the school."

Ah well. A man can dream, can't he?