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How To Deal With The Spatial Paradigm
PostThis writes that there's been "a lot of talk about Gnome's spatial Nautilus lately and so Christian Paratschek puts everything into perspective weighing in the pros and cons of this particular user interface paradigm. In any case, there are always alternatives."
Direct-access user interfaces, like Apple's Spotlight, Black Tree Software's QuickSilver, ObjectiveDevelopment's LaunchBar (all for Mac OS X) and Candy Labs' AppRocket (for Windows), are the future of file management interfaces.
The spacial vs. browser-style debate isn't worth winning, because either way you're sticking to metadata-ignorant heirarchies that humans just aren't very good at dealing with beyond a certain point.
It's bad enough to change default behavior on a user (at least it was during a major release) but all they had to do was add a preference to "open new folders in the same window" .. the same way windows does, and a lot less people would be upset.
Personally, I think the spatial idea is pretty useful when you have multiple monitors, and lots of space to spread out the "remembered" window locations. On a single screen the benefit just isn't as big.
--Cycon
Your Brain + EEG + LEGO Robots = Brainstorms
So, I read the article. And the author makes a reasonable point about newbies being more accustomed to the spatial metaphor. I'm not going to dispute that. It might or might not be a valid claim.
The question I want to ask is: what about those of us that are NOT newbies? The author states early on that he tries to avoid anything that would expose the filesystem tree abstraction to the end user. Maybe you could argue that it is good for newbie users, maybe not. But it DEFINITELY isn't good for non-newbie users.
Look, the filesystem is a TREE. That's what it IS. Any metaphor that you try to make the filesystem fit some other pattern will only take you so far. A tree is a very nice, clean structure. A lot of its expressive power is lost when you try to impose some strange alternate metaphor on it. When you deal with the filesystem as a tree, any operation that maps well onto trees, you can map well onto filesystems. It's a powerful abstraction.
And quite frankly, don't we WANT newbies to be learning the actual behavioural properties of the tools they use, rather than an artificially constructed interface which we deem them more able to use? Won't this lead to more intelligent users?
Personally, I think it's insulting to people to say that they can't "deal" with basic abstract structures. It's not THAT complicated guys. And we're not that smart for knowing how filesystems work. MOST people in the world can grok the concept perfectly fine, you just have to teach them. Perhaps some people feel threatened by that?
I was an avid gnome user. I stopped using it once I noticed the clear trend for gnome to assume that I'm dumb. That I can't deal with certain choices - which are better made by the developers than by me. Limiting excess in choice is fine.. but there is a fine line between reasonable limits, and top-down control. I think gnome crossed the line a ways back.
Keep your spatial browser. I'll keep my trees.
-Laxitive
If there really is a need for all these articles that explain what spatial file browsing is, how it works, and how it should be used -- then there is something seriously wrong with spatial browsing.
The ordinary tree structure has worked for millions of users, most were of them newbies when they got introduces to file browsing. I wager that there are no one (or very close to no one) who'll complain about the idea of a tree structure.
If people can use an ordinary index in a book, they can understand a tree structure. Most people will think in a manner that is similar to a tree structure; Let's see, pictures, vacation, 2003..
People like having multiple views of the same information. Why are virtual folders in e-mail applications so popular? Because they provide simple, logical views of the same date, used in different context!