Dysgraphia « Vincent Gable’s Blog

February 5, 2009

Pens Suck

Filed under: Accessibility,Design,Usability | Alan Kay, Doing With Images Makes Symbols, Dysgraphia, Ergonomics, Light Pens
― Vincent Gable on February 5, 2009

In 1987, Alan kay said,

By the way, Sketchpad was the first system where it was discovered that the light pen was a very bad input device. The blood runs out of your hand in about 20 seconds, and leaves it numb. And in spite of that it’s been re-invented at least 90 times in the last 25 years.

Almost 50 years after Sketchpad, you can find a light pen at any computer store today. Today, these light pens are used to supplement more circulation-friendly input devices. Maybe that’s enough to solve the problems Sketchpad had.

Personally, I think the metaphor of a the pen is too blindingly strong. People love their pens, because they grew up with them. I don’t accept that they are the pinnacle of input. We can do better then copying a pointy stick filled with dye.

But I have my own biases and unique experiences. I am dysgraphic — I have trouble writing legibly by hand, and spelling. To me a pen is not something that feels good or puts me in the zone. It’s something that gets in the way of expressing my ideas. But fundamentally, isn’t every input device a barrier between your mind and the medium?

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November 6, 2008

Alan Kay on Why Computer-Based Teaching Fails

Filed under: Accessibility,Quotes | Alan Kay, AlphaSmart, Doing With Images Makes Symbols, Dysgraphia, Education, Portable Computers
― Vincent Gable on November 6, 2008

Here’s a lightly-edited transcription of Alan Kay, explaining why computer-aided instruction so often fails (from “Doing with Images makes Symbols”, 1987),

After the experience I’ve had with working with both children and adults with computers (and at least dabbling in the areas of learning and education), I think that one of the best ways of thinking of a computer is very similar to thinking of what a piano means when teaching music.

The piano can amplify musical impulse. We can only sing with one voice. If we want to play a four-part fugue, we have to use something mechanical, like a piano to do it. And it can be done very beautifully.

But for most people the piano has been the biggest thing that turns millions of people away from music for the rest of their lives. And I think the best way to sum it up is just to say that all musicians know that the music is not inside the piano…

So, in any situation where education and learning is involved, you first have to develop a curriculum based on ideas, not on media. Media can be an amplifier of those ideas, but you have to have the ideas first.

And I think the reason computers have failed is that almost everybody, no matter which way they have tried to use computers, have wanted the computer to to be some sort of magic ointment over the suppurating wound of bad concepts. … But first you have to have the ideas.

This was exactly my experience as a student. I am dysgraphic — I have trouble writing legibly by hand, and spelling. So I took a laptop to all my classes, from 8th grade (1997) through college. The laptop solved a particular problem for me. But outside of that, it did not enhance my education; in some cases it got in the way. (One professor found students using laptops the most during class did 11% worse on tests compared to the rest of the class). If I wasn’t dysgraphic, I would have been better-off with a Moleskine.

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