And two stories:
First!One
Why is the url fuzzydough?
- dough = doug h = Doug Hindson (I think of it as baking dough, not $$)
- dough was taken
- I'm currently interested in fuzzy logic and fuzzy is a fun word; fuzzydoug was taken
- So fuzzydough: not taken, hurray - and if dough was fuzzy it would feel pretty neat in your hands...don't think of mold
First!Two
Today I taught my **yr old grandmother how to use email (gmail). She had never before used a web browser, MS word, or any text manipulation program before. She was basically computer-illiterate, and had only used a computer before to play solitaire. It was a surprisingly enlightening experience.
I made sure to let her do all the tactile doing. I started by getting her to open internet explorer. I then told her to click in the box at the top (address bar). She couldn't find it. Then I pondered about how unintuitive it is to navigate the whole internet through textual addresses. I pointed to it and she found the box. I told her to delete the text. She stopped for a while, then tried dragging the text out of the box. It didn't work.
We eventually got the gmail page, and I cringed at the clutter. I told her to ignore all the junk and guided her though the login process (I already made her an email account; can't imagine going through the account creation process). From there we continued to adventures of reading and writing emails.
Some important learnings I took away:
- every web page is covered with text and boxes, so telling a computer noob to 'click in the white box' or 'click on the text on the left' could result in anything
- natural user interfaces are the way to be; desktop computing is the most out-dated (past its time) modern technology
- granny only reads the first 2-3 words of written instructions
- even **yr olds are capable of becoming computer-literate
**a platinum number and age
-dough