Re: [Usability] User problems and practices with modern desktop systems

[Alan Horkan <horkana maths tcd ie>]

On Thu, 4 Nov 2004, Lutz Mueller wrote:

> Date: Thu, 4 Nov 2004 16:48:18 +0100
> From: Lutz Mueller <lutz familieMuellerInRemscheid de>
> To: usability gnome org
> Subject: Re: [Usability] User problems and practices with modern desktop
>     systems
>
> Hi Sean,
>
> your email reflects a lot of what I'm thinking about a while.
> I wasn't shure if this list is the right place for this ideas. And
> please forgive me my english :)

I'm sure your English is better than than my German (although if you can
get a spellchecker for Apple Mail it would probably make it easier for
you) and Germans tend to write very clear well structured easily
understandable English, there is definately something about the words they
choose.  If my English is unclear or misspelled do not hesitate to point
it out or ask me to rephrase my sentences.

> > Some interesting observations made by the researchers on
> > classification:
> > 4.1 Observed Classification Practices

> > "Archiving: To all of our users, archiving was decidedly an important
> > matter.  For this reason, a fair amount of effort was invested, both
> > in creating elaborate file system structures and in labelling them
> > adequately.... Proper classification was perceived as difficult: In
> > our study the users expended considerable cognitive effort with regard
> > to the classification of documents, and the labelling of folders and
> > documents."
> >
> > I think the point here is that it takes a fair amount of work to
> > classify all of your user documents.  I don't know if there is a good
> > solution to this though, as I don't really agree with the idea of
> > using metadata. and dumping everything to one directory.

> In my opinion folder are a very simple kind of information metadata.
> i believe the metapher of folder doesn't work propper. How do i
> organize my data? in projects, or what kind of work

> (home|office|external|inter|sport etc.), or like the structure given by
> osx in type (pictures|documents etc)

> We don't have to stick on old metaphers whatever it cost anymore. the
> world in computers is an other than world than in real life. For
> example I don't have gimmicks in a folder in an other folder and so on.
> May it be more helpfull to show the user that things in a computer are
> not limited as things in the real world?

Many designers allow themselves to be tied down too closely to the file
system and only allow things to be in one folder at the one time.  More
specific applications like Photo albums still have a very similar
organisation structure but can allow pictures to be in more than one album
at a time (filesystem users can uses aliases and links but that
generally seems too complicated) and it has the advantage of being more
focussed (the old maxim "do one thing well" still applies).

Mail programs largely ignore the file system and create their own system
of folders above it, massively reducing the complexity of naming and
saving created files.  (In a way providing Inbox|Outbox|Drafts helps you
get organised the same way providing a standard Documents|Pictures|Web
folders does.)  Mail programs usually provide rules to sort your messages
by and if even a few of these ideas could be applied to sorting of files
on disk it could certainly improve things.

New applications like Dashboard (by Nat Friedman, not the Apple version)
are helping string together the pieces and make it easier to organise
oneself.

> So I would like to have something like a mind mapping strukture: data
> xy is in relation to job x, projekt y done at June04 and so on.
> Additional with relations to the mimetype or possible applications.
> These mapping may be created by hand and by the system. By hand maybe
> with arrows to icons representing the projects or with popup menues.
> The system may generate links when I create a document by reusing an
> older one, or because I copy 'n paste content.

> the data are stored in kind of relational database and the links are
> m:n relations to other objects.
> searching will be a matter of selecting the patterns the data belongs
> to.
> A folder named "job application" will now be an icon opening a window
> with all data mapped to it. selecting an application shows the
> intersection.

This task based view of things could be very useful and trying to apply
some of the ideas to existing software like Planner might have potential.
If you can provide specific and incremental improvements to individual
applications it will make it much easier for developers to incorporate
your ideas.

> I hope some of you agree and this idea may develop the gnome "desktop".
> Lutz

I hope so too.

Sincerely

Alan Horkan

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