Re: Taking Advantage of Spatial Memory with the GS Window Picker

[Andreas Wallberg <andreas wallberg gmail com>]

Good suggestion!

In addition, I would very much like to be able to associate
applications with persistent weights like "important" to have them
more likely to show up early in any linear arrangements.

I have a suggestion to further boost the visual memory of the user.
Various widgets, borders and text of a workspace could perhaps be
associated with a particular color, drawn from a palette when the
workspace is created. These colors do not need to be omnipresent or
intrusive but applied in a subtle manner. They could perhaps be
applied to the digits of the clock and the characters of the
"Activities" button in normal view, and to window borders and
workspace borders in the overview or Window Picker to help the user
quickly associate applications with tasks and workspaces.

Best regards,
Andreas

On Mon, Dec 6, 2010 at 11:39 AM, Allan Caeg <allancaeg ubuntu com> wrote:
> Hello,
> The Dash and the planned Workspace Switcher take advantage of the user's
> spatial memory. It does so by having a fixed arrangement of items (app icons
> for Dash/workspaces for Workspace Switcher). Their linear order of the items
> can also be changed manually by the user and this order can have meaning
> attached to it (like sorting by level of importance).
> On the other hand, the Window Picker is two-dimensional instead of linear.
> Also unlike the Dash and Workspace switcher, the arrangement of items (in
> this case, windows) depends on an algorithm and the user can't manually edit
> the sorting.
> To visualize it,
> see http://img405.imageshack.us/img405/7938/windowpicker.png ;.
> This is my recommendation inspired by Firefox Panorama. Like on the dash,
> let's take advantage of the user's spatial memory by attaching a fixed
> linear relationship between windows. It'll still be flexible by allowing to
> user to manually rearrange windows, so the user can meaningfully sort them.
> The approach here is just a bit different from the Dash or Window Picker,
> because there's a bigger real estate allocated, but the principles would be
> fundamentally similar.
> It's best to read the Principles of Design that Aza wrote here to understand
> the rationale behind and to test the latest Firefox 4 beta build to test how
> it works.
>
> Thoughts?
> --
> Regards,
> Allan
> User Experience Designer
> http://www.google.com/profiles/allancaeg#about
> +63 918 948 2520
>
>
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>
>



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