Re: Directory drill-down navigation

[George Farris <george gmsys com>]

This is one of the most Intelligent remarks on spacial Nautilus I've
seen in a while and deserves some consideration.  I have to concur that
having to move the mouse so far to a new windows is generally a pain. 
New users are not going to know that they can right click and browse. 
Heck more than half the users I run up against don't get the whole right
click idea in the first place. Odd? You bet, but still true.

On Sat, 2004-02-28 at 08:04, joturner wrote:
> After using Gnome 2.5.5 (which I believe uses Nautilus 2.5.7) for a while I've 
> begun to grow accustomed to the spatial navigation.  While I like it, I also 
> think it's worth mentioning spacial single-window navigation.
> 
> The effect now seems very similar to how the BeOS Tracker worked.  Every new 
> directory was a new window.  For years people used this, and those who didn't 
> appreciate it tried to make alternatives.  Eventually, the effort to overhaul 
> the tracker became an open source movement sponsored by Be, Inc. called 
> OpenTracker.  No doubt this has already been covered.  I mention it only to 
> say that they moved from a true spatial navigation to a single-windowed type.  
> Microsoft recently did something similar with some of the choices they took in 
> XP.
> 
> I can see how such a change might cause a few to believe it's a slippery 
> slope.  If you add the option for single-window drill-down, you have to put 
> forward and back buttons, or else you've lost your ability to return to 
> previous directories.  Once you add forward and back buttons, why not up?  And 
> once up, why not a tree view to easily navigate between directories?  Now it's 
> not spatial at all.
> 
> In defense of the suggestion I can only say that strict spatial navigation can 
> have trouble with Fitt's Law.  (ref: 
> http://www.cs.umd.edu/class/fall2002/cmsc838s/tichi/fitts.html)
> 
> Let's say you open the home folder by clicking on "[your user name]'s Home".  
> The window opens away from the cursor, so you move the mouse over to it and 
> double-click another directory.  The new window opens away from the old one, 
> so you move your mouse again.  In my sample now, on my machine, the desktop 
> icons are obscured, as is about 60% of the desktop, and I've travelled the 
> mouse almost round-trip back to where I originally clicked the first desktop 
> icon.  To see the desktop icons I'll have to move the highest folder window 
> out of the way.
> 
> The beauty of spatial navigation is its simplicity.  I think that's pretty 
> obvious.  It would follow, then, that a solution to the Fitt's distances would 
> maintain that simplicity.
> 
> A few solutions have already been mentioned:
> 
> * Keep the same window.  The OpenTracker approach was to put back/forward/up 
> buttons on the window.
> 
> * Have an option to close the old window when a new one is opened.  This 
> option seems to have the same Fitt's distances as the current spatial view 
> without the ability to navigate to previous directories.  It does, however, 
> allow the user to automatically close windows so that windows or icons below 
> are not obscured.
> 
> * Keep spatial navigation the same, but offer a way to change the default 
> navigation to explorer-like navigation.  This doesn't fix spatial navigation, 
> but it does offer a way for users who do not wish to use to avoid it.
> 
> These may have been mentioned before I joined, but I'll list them here 
> (apologies, I wish I knew who to give credit for for these)
> 
> * Use tabs, and create new ones during drill-down.  This would work well until 
> the number of tabs became too many and Fitt's Law began to break down.  Too 
> many tabs, also, would be cumbersome and easy to lose track of.
> 
> * Create new tabs by request of the user.  This may suit a more advanced user, 
> but a user unaccustomed to this type of customized navigation would not be 
> able to navigate backwards through previous folders.
> 
> * Instead of tabs, create a back-stepping list on the side, a "history" of 
> previously visited directories.  This would remove the back/forward/up 
> buttons, but it adds another element that the user would have to understand.
> 
> * Add keyboard accelerators to jump back and forth between open spacial 
> folders.  This is an advanced user activity, but it does solve the Fitt's Law 
> distance, assuming, that is, that there aren't more than a handful of open 
> spacial folder windows open.
> 
> I'm sure there are other solutions as well, each with their own set of 
> benefits and drawbacks.
> 
> One thing is for sure, though, spacial navigation in Nautilus in its current 
> form has been attempted by Microsoft and BeOS, and both have since moved to a 
> single-window drill-down.  For some users the single-window approach is more 
> comfortable, and from a Fitt's Law standpoint, it is more compliant.  This 
> doesn't mean the spatial navigation should be made more complicated to 
> compensate, but a simple solution should be found and applied, something that 
> is easy for the new user to learn while maintaining usability for the more 
> advanced user (as well as the user that uses the computer for long periods of 
> time where Fitt's Law plays a big part).
> 
> Jonathan
-- 
George Farris <george gmsys com>