During a quick tour of the Windows Vista game features, our guide briefly demonstrated a feature of Windows Vista that's bad news for bad little boys. Parents will be able to block access to the computer during certain hours of the day on certain days of the week, as shown in the screenshot above (note: this is not a final version of the interface). As advocates of responsible parenting, we like to see software that gives parents tools that help them feel that gaming is something controllable, not a threat to proper upbringing.
With Vista, parents will have more control over their kids' computer use, but there are a few holes in the system's design:
- Kids often learn more about computer management than parents. They'll probably be the "administrators" of the computer, in most households. Too few parents realize that technical savvy is a prerequisite of good parenting in this internet age.
- The controls lack per-application granularity. As shown in this interface, blocking the computer for an hour blocks use of the entire computer. All a cunning child needs to do is claim that he's going to work on a book report to gain access to the computer, then swap over to a recreational activity once mom and dad stop watching. This control should be specified per application that is installed.
- The controls lack seasonality. Parents might want to specify different lock-out hours during the summer months (when they feel kids should be outside, perhaps), and they might want to specify, say, full access every other Friday.
There's no easy solution. Adding such granularity would increase the complexity of the system, and that complexity would turn some users away.
