Sure; the multiple-desktop route ought to be explored. The key is to avoid turning the working environment into a "maze of twisted passages, all alike."
In other words, the design must make traversing the different work areas as visually intuitive as the tree control. Perhaps a map graph or a set of parallel timelines would best help people rediscover the environment of interest.
I mean, novice users relate much better to "last Tuesday after lunch" than to "the blue desktop labeled 'draft recievables 2001-11-13'". I mean, there's nothing wrong with eventually filing the work history and/or end products on a particular desktop under 'recievables 2001-11-13', but that sort of systematic naming (in other words, devising and adhering to a naming convention designed for optimal partitioning) ought to be delayed as long as possible in the task cycle.
Of course, workers wouldn't much like having their every action included on a timeline. Hence it would probably be wise to have modes where only start times or end time are recorded . . . and to be able to completely obliterate [sic] individual items in the history.
A complementary technique for reducing the maze effect is to introduce reference counting to the filesystem. That minimizes the differences between a document and a link to a document. Reference tracking would allow you (in Win32 parlance) to right-click on a shortcut and select an entry that says "move/copy the document here" which would move the document between physical storage locations (if necessary) and simultaneously change all other references to the document (such as references within timeline-style workspaces). Yes, I realize that removable media and intermittently available network resources would require more than two catetories of document reference, but you get the idea.
Re:A shallow review of a shallow book
on
Emergence
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· Score: 2, Informative
Agreed. Incidentally, I have high hopes for A New Kind of Science. Undoubtedly, it'll contain more than its share of speculation. But, hopefully, the majority will be well-supported by verifyable experimental results.
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Sure; the multiple-desktop route ought to be explored. The key is to avoid turning the working environment into a "maze of twisted passages, all alike."
In other words, the design must make traversing the different work areas as visually intuitive as the tree control. Perhaps a map graph or a set of parallel timelines would best help people rediscover the environment of interest.
I mean, novice users relate much better to "last Tuesday after lunch" than to "the blue desktop labeled 'draft recievables 2001-11-13'". I mean, there's nothing wrong with eventually filing the work history and/or end products on a particular desktop under 'recievables 2001-11-13', but that sort of systematic naming (in other words, devising and adhering to a naming convention designed for optimal partitioning) ought to be delayed as long as possible in the task cycle.
Of course, workers wouldn't much like having their every action included on a timeline. Hence it would probably be wise to have modes where only start times or end time are recorded . . . and to be able to completely obliterate [sic] individual items in the history.
A complementary technique for reducing the maze effect is to introduce reference counting to the filesystem. That minimizes the differences between a document and a link to a document. Reference tracking would allow you (in Win32 parlance) to right-click on a shortcut and select an entry that says "move/copy the document here" which would move the document between physical storage locations (if necessary) and simultaneously change all other references to the document (such as references within timeline-style workspaces). Yes, I realize that removable media and intermittently available network resources would require more than two catetories of document reference, but you get the idea.
Agreed. Incidentally, I have high hopes for A New Kind of Science. Undoubtedly, it'll contain more than its share of speculation. But, hopefully, the majority will be well-supported by verifyable experimental results.