The XO-1 (nee OLPC, nee $100 laptop), for those who don’t know, is a computing platform developed specifically for young children in developing nations. It has been designed from scratch to address the needs of this unique audience.
Recently I have become interested in designing devices that empower childen (the “Children’s TV” is my first design in this regard). As part of my research I bought a Texas Instruments “Speak & Spell” which is a computer designed to help the children of the 80’s learn the alphabet and how to spell.
After playing with the Speak & Spell for a bit I realized that the keyboard is a kid-friendly ABCDEF layout rather than the typical QWERTY found on most keyboards.
Perhaps there should be the option for XO-1 users to physically change their keyboards. Youngsters can start with ABCDEF and advance to the less intuitive (but standard) QWERTY layout when they enter grade-school.
~ This post also appears at creativesynthesis.net
