spatial nautilus concerns
- From: David Feldman <mailing-lists interfacethis com>
- To: gnome-devel-list gnome org
- Subject: spatial nautilus concerns
- Date: Wed, 20 Oct 2004 08:08:32 -0400
I realize I'm coming to this discussion a bit late in the game, so I
apologize if I'm reopening dead arguments. It's been several years
since I last played around with Linux and I'm pretty excited to see the
progress the Linux GUI has made...at this point I'd argue it's more
usable than Windows it most respects. (I'm a UI designer so I think of
most everything in terms of "usable" :-))
I'm concerned about the discussion to date of the "spatial" /
"object-oriented" metaphor, and have been ever since I read John
Siracusa's article. It resonated with a lot of people, which worried me
because many of his arguments, and the principles on which he bases
them, are not supported by data and seem somewhat suspect. A few of his
claims contradict evidence from the cognitive sciences altogether. I'm
glad to see, looking through the GNOME discussions on the topic, that
the basis for the spatial Nautilus decision goes beyond just taking the
Ars Technica article at its word and is based on a direct debate of the
issues involved. But I'm saddened that, given how fundamental this
particular interaction is to the user's interaction with his computer,
it appears that no empirical evidence has been gathered to verify this
decision.
One thing overlooked in much of the discussion of this issue is the
existence (and advisability) of hybrid solutions. The Mac OS X Finder,
despite Siracusa's claims, adheres to nearly all tenets of his spatial
metaphor. Icons and windows stay where you put them, and there is a
one-to-one mapping of folders to windows except as overridden by the
Open in Same Window preference, the Column View, and explicit user
changes such as Keep Arranged by Name. Because the Open in Same Window
preference necessarily implies some of the navigation metaphor, Apple
also provides small forward/back buttons for users who want to take
advantage of that. To me this all seems like a good compromise, but my
opinion doesn't constitute empirical evidence any more than anyone
else's does. The point is simply that it's simply not a black-and-white
issue, and numerous in-between options are possible that mix and match
based on the value of certain trade-offs.
Trade-offs are, in fact, the main issue. Most of the spatial metaphor
seems to make sense in a vacuum, but every change has multiple
consequences for usability, and is made at the expense of some other
option. If strict one-to-one mappings of folders to windows is easier
to learn (something I haven't actually seen hard evidence of yet), is
it worth the drop in efficiency that might result from having so many
windows onscreen? If the current GNOME scheme (with browser and
non-browser versions of the windows) is used, is the added complexity
of its two-interface system worth the preservation of one-to-one
mapping in the default configuration? (I think the one-to-one mapping
thing is really the most important issue - it's certainly worth getting
evidence that keeping icons where one puts them is the best default,
but there's less debate about it and I think the issue is less
complex.)
A couple additional things:
- Without far more drastic changes to the GUI experience, I don't think
we're ever going to get to a pure spatial metaphor. For example, the
File Open dialog currently still uses the open-in-same-window scheme,
and presents the user with her folders in a window other than the one
shown by Nautilus. Sure, it's a different app, but that's not
necessarily important to (or understood by) the user.
- One common argument in favor of the spatial metaphor is that most
people don't find file paths natural. Yet people often put things in
folders, or categorize them according to nested hierarchies. (Siracusa
claims that most people aren't good at this, but provides no support.)
Maybe that's out of necessity, but maybe it's a natural way for people
to classify things. If the latter, file paths may be natural for
people, and (for example) it may just be that many users aren't always
comfortable with the textual representations of those paths, and/or
with hierarchies that they themselves have not constructed.
I certainly have my guesses at the answers to these questions. As a UI
designer, I often base designs on such guesses. But I also always
recommend the use of empirical methods such as usability testing to
verify my choices. It's important when those choices are simple layout
decisions, bounded by the standards of the platform. It's much _more_
important when one is defining the platform itself and dictating some
of its fundamental default behaviors.
If empirical testing is underway, I apologize for my lengthy
message...I haven't heard anything and feel pretty strongly about this.
I started feeling strongly when I read the Ars Technica article, mostly
because of the number of broad claims it makes about usability without
any real support. But it goes beyond that. Linux, in large part due to
the efforts of the GNOME community, is becoming a viable alternative to
Windows for more and more users. I'm really excited about that, and the
more it gets right the more excited I am. As more and more nontechnical
users make the switch, the cost of making fundamental changes to the
user experience rises, so the time to make such changes is now. GNOME
has implemented all the functionality required by pretty much any
permutation or hybrid of the spatial and navigation metaphors, so the
question becomes one of choosing the right default settings rather than
a lot of development time. Empirical methods such as usability testing
work. So why not apply them and make sure we've got it right?
In the meantime, a modest proposal that doesn't change the default but
provides flexibility to users and developers: Decouple the "open in
same window" option from the "always use browser window" option. Then
users (like me) who want to stick with the more minimal window style
but would like folders to open in the same window can set things up
that way. (Similarly, users who mostly want the spatial metaphor but
also want the browser functionality at their fingertips can leave "open
in same window" off but enable the browser.)
Thanks for listening :-).
Dave
------------------------------------------------------------------------
--
David A. Feldman
User Interface Designer
http://InterfaceThis.com
[
Date Prev][
Date Next] [
Thread Prev][
Thread Next]
[
Thread Index]
[
Date Index]
[
Author Index]