Observations, from helping my 9 year old relative:

The station interface is virtually impossible to use. this kid can navigate diablo 2's interface like a pro, he can do starcraft, red alert, empire earth, even the awful tony hawk pro skater 4 park-builder. But he still needs my help on the station interface, to do things like equip weapons, move items from one ship to another, etc. And in space, he is trying to jump using 'enter' from the navmap.. pressing 't' to talk in station, and other things that would work if the interface was consistent. But its not and he is going 'sheesh' alot.

The lowering of XP requirements for low license levels is excellent. This is a great idea especially for kids.

He likes mining, he likes botting, but he also likes fooling around, zooming in on the sun, doing external ship views while he rolls and turns, doing 3d ship view in station, getting new ship colors, etc. In fact one of the exciting aspects of the game is trying to control the ship when docking or when mining to keep from running into things, braking to a stop only a few meters from impact. I think sometimes people forget that the basics are part of the fun.

Anyways there you have it. Xerox parc asked kids for help making the Alto, maybe games should too.

You are dead on! Even with adults, it can be an eye opener to learn what they are thinking and what questions they have when first using a piece of software.

I'm a software developer, and about 15 years ago we found that our user documentation was not doing a sufficient job of instructing users. We monitored a group of 5 people as they used our software for the first time. We were close at hand, and asked them to let us know whenever they had a question or found something that didn't work the way they felt it should.

What an learning experience that was -- for us more than for them. It was truly amazing to see first-hand what goes through the users mind. Needless to say, it was nothing like we anticipated. But that experience, that we repeated with every new release, sure helped improve both our software and the documentation.

Heh, even I like zooming in on the sun occasionally. :)

Yes the station interface is virtually impossible to understand right away. We are well aware of that and it is going to be changed.

well, just since you're going to change it somewhen,
I just *have* to point on one of the threads from the
suggestion board...

http://vendetta-online.com/x/msgboard/3/8170

(well, I *guess* you are aware of it, but well... :) )