Most used and Recently Used [was Re: [Usability] New way of accessing software (WAS: Re: Big Panel menus (32x32))]

[Alan Horkan <horkana maths tcd ie>]

On Fri, 13 Jun 2003, David Adam Bordoley wrote:

> > From: Calum Benson <calum benson sun com>
> >
> > On Fri, 2003-06-13 at 11:10, Janne wrote:
> >
> >> One way might be to mirror the "recent files" mechanism: have an area at
> >> the bottom of the main menu with room for, say four to six apps, and set
> >> the most recently used apps there - without altering the menu content
> >> itself. That way the menu structure itself remains static and
> >> predictable.
> >
> > There was some discussion about doing this here:
> > http://mail.gnome.org/archives/usability/2002-September/msg00053.html
> > http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=93350
> >
> > I agree (as I said then) that it would probably have to go at the top
> > level of the main menu.  I don't think putting it in a submenu like we
> > do with "Recent Documents" would give noticeably quicker access than if
> > the app you wanted to run wasn't on the list.

Put the users in Control but at the same time dont ask too many stupid
questions.
The automatic hiding or reorganising of menu items is really really
annoying.  "Just because I dont use the fire extinguisher very often
doesn't mean I want someone to hide it".

By all means gather usage statics.  I think the appropriate place to
suggest reorganisation is in the menu editor (whenever it arrives) or when
the user is tries to reorganise the menus by some other detectable method.

> Somewhat off topic (but this is the usability list so I don't care:)

;)

> Wouldn't be cool if recent documents (and even appplications maybe) was an
> autogenerated list based on a filesystem metadata search of the 10 most
> recently used files by a user. (/me has been dreaming of reiserfs's
> potential here).

What David suggests would undoubtedly be useful but I want to make
absolutely clear that he is talking about _most_used_ where as in the near
future I would very much like to see _recently_used_ which is useful in
quite a differnt way.

For most people particularly those who dont use many applications the
applictions they use the most often and the applications they used
recently would probably be pretty much the same.

However I have many programs installed and spend far too much time in
front of a computer and use lots of different programs at differnt times.
When I do a bit of graphics work for example I would be using maybe three
or four differnt programs, and for that day I would want really want the
Recent Used applications, not my most used application which most
likely would be Tetris, or some
other game :)

Figuring out the recently used application is simple.
Figuring out the applictions you use most often based on how often you
launch them is a terrible oversimplification.

> >> And since we aren't touching them, it's fine to experiment
> >> with statistics to show the most recently - and heavily - used apps, so
> >> a one-off usage of some app won't push away an app that is being used
> >> all the time.

It is great idea in theory but the implementation requires a vary
careful balance to keep to the user in control, and offering them
revelevant choices.

Sincerely

Alan Horkan
http://advogato.org/person/AlanHorkan/