On my iPad, my 2-year old is able to unlock the screen, go to Home in case any app is active and then open his favorite 2 apps (a simple game for toddlers and a painting app).
That's not saying much though, he just did what all kids do ... tried things out and quickly memorized what worked and it was easy and fun for him to do so because of the touch-screen. He also taught me some shortcuts I had no idea were available, like how to do multitasking by switching between active apps or how to split the on-screen keyword into 2 smaller pieces :-)
In general, kids can learn by trial and error quite efficiently, sometimes in a matter of minutes or seconds and shouldn't be used as a benchmark for how intuitive an interface is, because all that really says about an interface is that it can be learned by trial and error by kinds. Regular WIMP interfaces are indeed not intuitive for kids because the interface is often exposed through hierarchical menus that can't be explored by children who can't read.
In general, kids can learn by trial and error quite efficiently, sometimes in a matter of minutes or seconds and shouldn't be used as a benchmark for how intuitive an interface is,
That seems like a great benchmark to me. If trial and error gives feedback that allows you to qiuckly learn the UI then that's pretty useful.
At the end of the day a lot of usability is about two things:
1. Consistency
2. Familiarity
If trial and error is effective then consistency is in place. Skeumorphism is about taking familiarity of the real world and applying it to the digital world. And this actually has some use, in particular for UI that users won't interact with much. There's no chance for users to be become familiar with that UI. But for UI that is always there, skeumorphism becomes limiting and can become unusable when you really want to extend beyond what you see in the real world.
Metro says, "The digital world is becoming so prevelant that we should optimize for it, not just the physical world." Is Metro perfect? No. But I think it has the right idea to figure out what works on computers/tablets/phones first. Don't be encumbered by trying to map to physical objects. People will spend so much time with the digital objects that they may spend 10m doing trial and error the first time, but shortly the digital world will be just as familiar as the physical world. Lets not waste the opportunity to introduce the right interactions.
So I guess you've never seen a child being able to program the clock on a god-awful VCR from the late-eighties / early ninties.
I was that kid, when no other member of the family could and let me tell you, it had nothing to do with (1) consistency and (2) familiarity. What's "familiar" to a small child anyway? The notion is preposterous.
No, the issue has more to do with the fact that the organization of these interfaces on mobile-devices tends to be flat (rather than hierarchical), so the probability of hitting something that triggers an action of interest is really high, versus searching in a menu with sub-menus, an action for which you need to be able to read and with transitions that are not animated and thus boring.
As I was trying to say, using a child as a benchmark for usability is a poor benchmark, because if you look carefully a child does not care for neither consistency or familiarity.
> Metro says, "The digital world is becoming so prevelant that we should optimize for it, not just the physical world."
IMHO, Metro only says "let's differentiate from iOS and Android", but that's just an opinion.
That's not saying much though, he just did what all kids do ... tried things out and quickly memorized what worked and it was easy and fun for him to do so because of the touch-screen. He also taught me some shortcuts I had no idea were available, like how to do multitasking by switching between active apps or how to split the on-screen keyword into 2 smaller pieces :-)
In general, kids can learn by trial and error quite efficiently, sometimes in a matter of minutes or seconds and shouldn't be used as a benchmark for how intuitive an interface is, because all that really says about an interface is that it can be learned by trial and error by kinds. Regular WIMP interfaces are indeed not intuitive for kids because the interface is often exposed through hierarchical menus that can't be explored by children who can't read.