A mess from start to finish, this program hosted by Disney princesses is fraught with poor design elements and mediocre activities. Its premise-- to encourage girls to communicate, explore, create and enjoy being a girl-- is commendable, but the software itself has significant weaknesses. A desk serves as the main menu. Here, girls can redecorate a bit by clicking around, and this was probably the most fun we had in the whole program. Non-intuitive, misleading icons are everywhere. Thinking we'd like to paint, for example, we clicked on a desk drawer with a paint brush, and found ourselves watching the program credits roll by. Clicking on another drawer with a bright color splash (we still wanted to paint), we were shown the exit. When we finally clicked on a notebook, we were given a message that sections of the game we were about to play wouldn't work until we established an online connection. So, we exited the program, started up AOL and then opened the program again. Now we could play the insipid games to their entirety. Girls can play a matching game to collect trading cards of Disney characters, and they can have their fortunes read three different ways. Some of the better activities allow girls to create web pages and send email to friends, but you have to know another girl with this program to make it work. We continuously ran into ease of use problems. For example, it's hard to know where to click. Icons are not well highlighted, or there are two similar looking icons on the same page. We were also distressed to see that kids can click their way to the Princess Palace web site, which is beyond the "safe" program environment touted on the packaging. And, if you do go to the web site-- it's hard to get back into the program! Stay away!
Teaches: Age Range: Copyright © 2001 Children's Software Revue
Amazon.com Product Description
It's after school and there's so much to talk about with your girlfriends! Get connected with
Disney's Girlfriends and enjoy an instant messenger, e-mail, making Web pages, fortunetelling, and friends' profiles, in a safe and contained online environment. There are nine activities in all, hostedby Disney's modern princesses Jasmine, Belle, and Ariel.