Re: [Usability]Re: PATCH: Bug 82107, Turn off nautilus sidebar and location bar by default

[Damien Covey <djcovey softhome net>]

I personally would hate to see the location bar go.  The dumbing down of
the interface is one reason that I have left WinXP behind me in preference
for Linux.  And even for "non advanced" users it is usefull to have to location
bar there.  How else can I obtain from a user over the phone what directory
they are in.  The answer "temp" doesnt really help me much, it could be /home/user/temp/
or /temp.  I'm sure there are other circumstances where this is the case.

David Watson wrote:
> Hi Dave B & C,
>
> I know, I know...  I said wasn't going to be sending this email.  Well,
> now that I've heard that Ximian and RedHat plan on turning the side pane
> off by default, I feel that its necessary to defend the side pane one last
> time.
>
> On 31 Aug 2002, Dave Bordoley wrote:
>
> > This patch turns off the location bar and sidebar by default.CCing
> > usability list on this to get there opinions as well. Below are some of
> > my comments from the bug.
> >
> > dave
> >
> > -----------------------------------------------------------------------
> > IMHO, the default nautilus look is to cluttered and can be confusing to
> > users.
> >   
>
> > 1) The location bar should be off by default.
> >    First, the location bar is a feature that is used by fairly advance
> >   
>
> People can/must learn to use the location bar in order use the web.
> Everyone uses the web.  Hence, it is not an advanced feature.
>
> > users.  Since it requires knowledge of the layout of the unix filesystem
> >   
>
> Nautilus uses a uri scheme so that it can view more than just UNIX
> filesystems.  So even w/o knowledge of the UNIX filesystem layout, it can
> be useful.
>
> Furthermore, only the complete path fully identifies a given location, so
> if we were to turn the location bar off we would need make the full path
> conveniently available from somewhere else (often the title bar is
> suggested).  However, if we're going to display the full path anyway,
> thereby exposing the user to the UNIX filesystem (oh noo!) we lose
> nothing by making that path editable.
>
> > to be of any use. To a user new to unix, being able to enter in a
> > location doesn't mean anything if they aren't familiar with the unix
> > directory system.
> >   
>
> To a user new to computers being able to right click on an icon doesn't
> mean anything if they aren't familiar with the icon/desktop metaphor.
>
> ?
>
> >   Which leads to my second point, though more thorough user testing is
> > needed, I suspect that for the vast majority of new users (particularly
> > windows converts) the presence of the location bar strongly suggests
> > that nautilus can be used as a web browser (I've actually experienced
> >   
>
> I have experienced this as well.  IMHO, the correct solution is to give
> users what they want.  We should depend on a web view.
>
> And no, I don't believe that web browsing and file browsing can't be done
> with the same app.
>
> > 2) The sidebar should be off by default
> >    The sidebar takes up an enormous amount of screen space( about 1/5 of
> > the nautilus window) while providing little to no general user benefit.
> >   
>
> The side pane is useful for:
>
> a) opening an editing application when using a viewer.
> b) adding annotations to directories and files.
> c) and obviously, accessing side pane views, some yet to be invented,
> some simply needing to be fixed (e.g. the tree view).
> d) face it, the side pane just plain looks nice (e.g.
> www.cs.ucr.edu/~dwatson).
>
> > The default tabs, notes and history, are not commonly used enough to
> > justify using up the such a large portion of screen space.
> >   
>
> Actually I use notes all the time (incidently, it might be nice if we
> could dnd notes to the desktop).
>
> By leaving the side pane on users will be aware of the notes, history
> and tree panes.  It will be more difficult for users to discover
> these features then it will be for them to turn them off if they are
> unwanted.  It will also be less likely that new uses for the side pane
> will be developed (if it defaults to off then it defaults to unused).
>
> Finally, though this is a less important point, both netscape and windows
> default to showing the side pane.
>
> As always, just MHO,
>  - David