OLPC XO Device – User Interface primer
guilhem | September 24, 2007Hello all…
Last week I attended the Open Source in Mobile conference in Madrid, at which I could get a demo of the “One-Laptop Per Child” (OLPC) XO device from Jeff Waugh, a prominent figure of the GNOME project.
For those of you not familiar with this project, the “One-Laptop Per Child” foundation wants to bring laptop computers to schoolchildren in developing countries. I will not here dwell on the price or success of the device, but rather focus on its software and really innovative user interface.
But before entering the software’s details, a quick recap’ on the device’s hardware spec may be useful in order to understand what the device has to offer: manufactured by Quanta computer, children-proof hardware design (makes me think of the EP disc player I had when I was a kid), WiFi with 2 aerials, AMD Geode 433MHz CPU, 256 MB RAM, 1 GB NAND Flash storage, touchpad, QWERTY keypad, large screen (1200×900, 7.5″), Playstation buttons, camera sensor.
In terms of software the device is running a customised version of the GNOME Mobile and Embedded stack, that is:
- Foundation: Linux, X11, GLIB
- Middleware
- Matchbox (windowing)
- GTK/Pango/Cairo (UI toolkit)
- GStreamer (multimedia)
- avahi (service discovery over network)
- Applications (main ones):
- Document editor (Evince)
- eBook reader
- Video conferencing / IM
- RSS reader
- web browser
- Activity journal
- collaborative music authoring
The really nice thing about this device is that its UI has beend designed around new concepts, targetting its primary user base: schoolchildren.
It is rather refreshing to see this kind of focus in an industry dominated usually by geeks…
First of all, the main UI centers around a wheel-like design:
In the center, the wheel represents running applications and the total amount of memory they consume. When the wheel is full, it means that the device is running out of memory and that some apps should be closed unless the device will freeze or crash… quite clever given the comparatively little RAM available.
Other neat things in this main screen are the idiot-proof application launch icons at the bottom and the activity icons on top.
“Activities” are another radical concept in this UI design. The basic assumptions is that schoolchildren will not manipulate files but rather they would first want to *do* something, like: read a book, share it with friends, talk to friends, etc.
Therefore, instead of a file browser, the UI presents an activity log (or “journal”)
As said above, activities can be shared, which brings me to the next great thing in the OLPC XO user interface: mesh-view and presence.
In the view above what you see is a representation of your real and virtual surroundings: thanks to its dual-aerial WiFi, the device is capable of computing a geographical view of other WiFi devices around you and the services they offer (thanks to avahi !). If you happen to be engaged in conversations with other people through IM or VoIP, they would also be displayed here…
This opens very interesting use cases in a very intuitive way from the usability perspective, like creating ad-hoc sessions to work on a teacher assignment, sharing an eBook with schoolmates, creating music together, start a visio conference …
This last use case is enabled by the “Telepathy” framework and app from GNOME, here is a screenshot:
Finally, the basic “value proposition” of the device is that it is cheaper than the collection of books that schools have to purchase for each kid, therefore the device has been designed to function as a very good eBook reader. In this mode, the LCD screen turns into a high-contrast balck and white display:
That’s all folks … I hope you enjoyed the preview. The device is soon to be launched, so I guess there will be more posts about it on the blogosphere.
Guilhem