Re: [Epiphany] Bookmarks

[Marco Pesenti Gritti <marco gnome org>]

> I think one reason most people think they like the hierarchical menus is because it works well with "muscle memory".

> ie if I use a bookmark often enough my hand automatically remembers the movements required to get 

> through the submenus to the bookmark. 

I very very much doubt muscle memory have any effect on multi level
hierarchies, which very often contains several items. I can believe it
has an effect in a toolbar folder, or in a menu folder that you use very
very often, not much more.
Actually I think people that feel well using hierachies are those who
are able to develop muscle memory on a bigger number of items. (build a
well ordered hierarchy is another issue ...).
In any case reducing the number of items/places you have to remember is
going to improve your efficience, even if your memory is very strong.
Reducing cognitive load is a positive thing.

Am I the only one that when working on a project with several files
involved feel to be wasting more energy (mental and phisycal) going
through folders than doing the actual work ?;)

> This is possible because there is a very static bookmark location 

> placement. IMO in 90% of the cases that bookmark will be in one place and one place only in a hierarchical

>  system. 

Surely in a hierarchical system things are in a place and in one only.
For some reason I like Cooper definition of developers as Homus logicus.
Going by logic, organizing things in rigid categories is certainly the
more natural thing ...
The problem is that human memory (and languages) behave differently ....

> So while I think a vfolder-like architecture (AFAIK such as Storage) 

> is great for finding exactl what you need it does take away a visual certainty some users 

> like as well make it much harder to just idly browse the bookmarks like I can do right now 

> on the web in Yahoo or Google Directory or DMOZ. 
> 

This seem unrelated to memory isnt it ? Seth talk briefly about this
issue in his essay.
My opinion, in relation to bookmarks only is that maintaining a well
organized hierarchy like Google or DMOZ is not something the majority of
people have time or skills to do. I tend to consider bookmarks like a
way to get fastly to something you need.

The problem is certainly interesting anyway. An example of how a
hierarchy is not the only way to present information in a browsable way
is dashboard. Though I'm really going out of topic here ;)

(For what is worth I tend to not idly browse web search directories, but
rather to idly jump from site to site, I feel it more interesting but
that's just me. More objective data would be interesting here.)

Marco