Re: gnome shell (aplication)mockup

[Sriram Ramkrishna <sri ramkrishna me>]

On Thu, Jan 14, 2010 at 11:40 AM, Samuel Arthur Wright Illingworth <mazz0 mazz0 com> wrote:

From some discussions around the app designs we didn't feel the

category system was very successful, and wanted to move away from it.

One of the newer inkscape mockups has a grid, and I think that just
makes sense, especially on larger displays.

Now, different sections in the grid is something to consider.  I think
it'd be interesting to try a section which was e.g. "Recently Closed"
apps.  Another one might be "Newly Available" (think PackageKit
integration here).

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What was found to be wrong with the Category system?  I find having a huge amount of data presented to me at once (e.g. all my applications) to be less usable - it takes me longer to get my head round it and find what I'm looking for, even if it's laid out logically.  I think categories reduce the amount of data your brain needs to process at once, thus making it easier, and quicker, to use.  Also, dynamic layouts such as recently used, or something more complicated and Zeitgeist based, means you have to stop and think, you can't use muscle memory to find what you were after.  There are positives to that, but your'e also losing something as well.

I've been using the non-category system for quite awhile and I think my pattern of selecting applications is too random for the recently use so I spend most of my time scrolling up and down on the application list trying to find my apps.  My observation is this:

* I'm still using the muscle memory from the previous GNOME 2 menu system where I still remember what categories the apps were in.  Because I have that in my head I find it harder to search for apps.  it doesn't help that i have this in method in windows as well.  Only in OSX I don't since I have everything I need on the sidebar.

* I was able to alleviate some of my issue by using the search feature, but a lot of the time I don't remember what the app was called I just remember it's location in the old menu system.

I don't know if my behavior pattern is indicative of a future problem for older users trying to move from one system to another.  But you should definitely test that in the user testing to see if my experience is typical or not.

If we want to go with a grid, then I would like to see commonly used applications slightly larger than the rest with possibly a different color.  I understand from a different thread that this is hard to do, but it seems like if you want to pursue the grid then something must be done to be able to find applications quickly as I think in free software we tend to have more apps installed than in our windows counter part from casual observation.

sri