Re: Menubar (and Empty Default Desktop) Proposals for GNOME 2.10

[Bryan Clark <bclark redhat com>]

On Thu, 2004-11-18 at 21:53 +0000, Mike Hearn wrote:
> On Thu, 18 Nov 2004 22:02:22 +0100, Reinout van Schouwen wrote:
> > My gut feeling tells me application launchers (like 'Web Browser') are 
> > OK on the panel and in the menu, the desktop should be mostly reserved 
> > to files and folders. But, we could have URL objects for 'Home page' 
> > or 'Today's News' on the desktop instead.
>
> Well, why is that? Do you have any evidence (anecdotal is fine ;) that
> this increases usability?
>
> Minimalist doesn't necessarily mean easier ...

In reference to clean desktops and I shouldn't do this since I don't necessarily agree with it 100% but it has some good points.  There have been several articles in the SIGCHI [1] Interactions magazine [2] and other places, in particular the latest one had an article titled "In Pursuit of Desktop Evolution" [3] where it goes into a disconnect between system and user data as the computer drops files (app launchers and computer icons) on the desktop where the users believe they own all the space with personal files.

Here's my "fair use" excerpt:
>     Users—particularly lesser-skilled ones—shared the impression that the operating system "fiddles" with their information, an impression affected by the poor separation of system-owned data and user-owned data (i.e. the screen real estate—decidedly a user-owned area—is cluttered by the icons of newly installed programs and shortcuts which are regularly and automatically added).

Sorry but the ACM stuff requires an account to access, student accounts are fairly cheap and working stiffs have to pay out the nose.

Cheers,
~ Bryan

[1] http://www.acm.org/sigchi/
[2] http://portal.acm.org/browse_dl.cfm?linked=1&part=magazine&idx=J373&coll=portal&dl=ACM&CFID=31772410&CFTOKEN=41131736
[3] http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1029036.1029043&coll=portal&dl=ACM&idx=1029036&part=periodical&WantType=periodical&title=interactions&CFID=31772410&CFTOKEN=41131736