Re: Nautilus Space Mock-up

["Luca Cappelletti" <luca cappelletti gmail com>]

On Tue, Jun 3, 2008 at 2:51 PM, Mike Rooney <mrooney gmail com> wrote:

2008/6/3 Luca Cappelletti <luca cappelletti gmail com>:

> On Mon, Jun 2, 2008 at 11:03 PM, Matthew Paul Thomas <mpt myrealbox com>
> wrote:
>>
>> Achim Frase wrote on 02/06/08 13:30:
>> >...
>> >
>> > http://www.gnome-look.org/CONTENT/content-files/82416-nautilus-tabs-space.png
>> >...
>> > To my mind, the bars should show how big the files are, in relation to
>> > the folder size.
>> >...
>>
>> That's is an interesting idea.
>>
>> It's another way of presenting size. So how about making it part of the
>> "Size" column, instead of a separate column?
>>     _____________________
>
> I don't think this mock up idea improve real usability providing relative
> values feedback.
> My users does not need to know a file folder relative weight distribution,
> they need to know only how big is an object so that they know how to manage
> relative to their real container (the disk).
> The bar information does not provide a real value added if shows how big the
> file is against the sum of it's folder container.
> Who needs this and what they do with this value?
> A part this opinion I think the graphical solution is real nice :) but seems
> to me unusable.

Well, I think it is nice. It allows you to instantly see what files
are taking up the most space. Without this you would have to sort by
size and then read file sizes. Bars like this save the user a lot of
time and don't require sorting by that column to gain useful
information from it.

You say users need to identify large files, how is this not
tremendously better for doing so?

Agreed about using analogical view against numerical one to show fuzzy quantities but I'm not sure about using relative-folder quantity.
One of the subjects of this thread is closed to show bars that offer a relative to folder quantity and I think it's not useful to generic users other than trying to understand which file is bigger than other into the folder.
But I think it will be interesting to see a color based bars (i.e: red = huge green = light) showing how they're "...taking up the most space...".
My question is: Does that bars confuse users on what they really represent? What they really represent? a relative value against the folder or against the volume inside stored? or against the sum of all internal drive or the sum of all the drives?
How user feels space in a computer?
I'm trying to image a daily usage, but it's hard to me to simulate a good feedback against this new feature other than a simple comparison between internal folder files.
Probably if the bars shows relative value against the folder content, means that there will be at least on bar full (100% of the folder) and the rest a fraction % of the biggest one and this will be possibly for me a good visual feedback :)

I agree with the point of Clum about Baobab point [2]

ciao :)

Luca.