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Is There Enough Sugar in Your Educational Technology Diet?
David D. Thornburg, PhDDirector, Global OperationsThornburg Centerdthornburg@aol.comwww.tcpdpodcast.orgwww.tcpd.org
Creative Commons Copyright
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, 2008 by David D. Thornburg
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Electronic version of this article can be copied and distributed in its entirety without charge.
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One of the larger technology news stories of the past two years has been the development ofthe XO computer through the One Laptop Per Child initiative launched by MIT. This projecthad as its initial goal the creation of a child's computer that would cost only $100, and would be purchased in such large quantities as to get them into the hands of millions of children peryear until every child in the world had one. While this project hit some snags, it is now at thepoint that laptops are shipping, even though the price point has moved closer to $200 each,and the million-unit sales have yet to materialize.Unfortunately, the press seems to be focused on the computer itself, making little mention ofa more significant development: the creation of the Sugar user interface that transforms howpeople interact with the computer. As we'll explore, Sugar is the first truly new user interfacefor personal computers developed in the past thirty years. Furthermore, it is not restricted tothe OLPC, but can be used on virtually any hardware platform being manufactured today.Why is Sugar important? Why might children benefit from a different user interface than thatused by adults? These and other questions will be addressed, but first we need some history.
The early years of graphical user interfaces
I had the honor of being one of the first 25 employees of the famed Xerox Palo Alto ResearchCenter. This facility was home to many of the technologies we take for granted today: thelaser printer, the Ethernet, the concept of a single user (personal) computer, and thedevelopment of the graphical user interface.I used to joke that we could have any computer we wanted at PARC, as long as we built itourselves. With a talented team as comfortable with soldering irons as they were withprogramming, it seemed that truly anything was possible. Prior to our work, most computerspresented the user with a blank screen containing a flashing cursor when first turned on.Unless you knew exactly which incantation to type, the computer just sat there, incapable ofproviding any hint of what your options were. Furthermore, if you were creating adocument, old computer systems presented you with a display of screen text whoseappearance was unlike anything you would expect in the final printed document.The first big step was the development of the “what you see is what you get” (WYSIWYG)computer display. Instead of a display screen showing fixed-pitch “text mode,” the screen ofthe Alto (our first personal computer) was a graphic display. Text was shown much as itwould appear when printed. Once the laser printer was invented, we had the incentive todevelop multiple typefaces for the screen that had high resolution counterparts used by theprinter. Furthermore, against custom, we displayed black text on a white background(instead of green text on black, as was common for computer displays of the time.) BecausePage 2
the display screen was graphical, text and images existed in comfortable relation to eachother, and the mouse (previously developed at SRI) became a powerful tool for indicatingwhere on the screen something was to happen. During this time, one of my projects involvedthe invention of graphical user interface devices, some of which are still in use today.Once the WYSIWYG interface was developed, it was a natural step to consider what userswould see when they first turned on their computer, and how they were to launchapplications and navigate through documents. Invention was blended with spiritedargument as various ideas were hammered out and refined. As I recall, David Canfield Smithcame up with the idea of visually representing programs and documents with small graphicalelements we called “icons.” One iteration of the user interface that was approved by Xerox isshown below:This image shows the screen layout for the Star computer, the commercial outgrowth of theAlto. This is easily recognized as the “desktop” metaphor.What is particularly striking (to me) is the fact that this interface from the mid-1970's is still being used today. One could conclude that either we were the brightest designers on theplanet (unlikely), or that users didn't pressure the industry to revisit the topic of userinterface design (more likely). Having been present the day Steve Jobs saw this interface atPARC for the first time, the Macintosh came as no surprise. In fact, my original Macintoshdocumentation was never opened. If I had any questions, I just used my old Alto userPage 3
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