Re: Nautilus 2.6 - We're going all spatial

[Dave Camp <dave ximian com>]

>       * You are actually making the Nautilus model more complicated (not
>         simpler) by exposing the user to two completely different kinds
>         of windows, for "object" and "navigation" purposes.  This seems
>         to defeat the basic premise of making the model easier to learn.

That might be a valid problem.

> 
>       * If "navigation mode" is only available from the menu bar or a
>         right click menu and everything on the desktop opens in "object"
>         mode by default, then users who prefer the navigation mode
>         (which might even be the majority of them :-)) are going to
>         suffer a lot, since they won't be able to just double-click
>         desktop icons anymore.

If time tells that the navigation mode is the better default, we will
change the default.

> Before making such a big paradigm shift it would probably be better to
> do a thorough research on how the model actually affects users. 
> (Research which you might have done already -- in which case it would be
> nice to know the results of that.  ;-))

The best way to get meaningful data is with a prototype.  That's what
we're doing.

> > Our general opinion coming out of that thread was that the Object
> > Oriented metaphor was probably easier to learn, and built a stronger
> > conceptual model for users, but that the convenience benefits of a
> > navigation window outweighed those.
> 
> So why are you making the object oriented metaphor the default?  I doubt
> there is really a learnability problem at all -- if the browser model
> were so difficult to understand people wouldn't even be able to browse
> the web (or use a file selector dialog).

We want to see if we can fix the convenience problems with the object
metaphor.

Your argument basically comes down to "I don't know if this will be
better".  So here we have a prototype that will help us get some idea of
the benefits and drawbacks.

(Note that the navigation metaphor arguments are similarly wishy-washy -
I don't think there's any clearly superior choice here).

Thanks,
-dave