[Usability] Text legibility on the desktop; the Cartesian file browser

[luke optushome com au]

In a discussion elsewhere about disguising Linux as Windows (don't
ask!), a couple of comparison screenshots were shown, and I noticed
that while the Windows text labels for desktop items were legible, the
Nautilus ones weren't (it only happens if you're using a background
image, so you don't have good contrast).  Specifically:

>  Fortunately, it's even easier to do that these days, with a little bit 
>  of care.  Compare and contrast: 
>  http://home.pacific.net.au/~peterhardy/win-desktop.png 
>  http://home.pacific.net.au/~peterhardy/linux-desktop.png 

 > > Obviously it's not going to be an issue unless you choose an image as
> > the background, or if you choose font colours that are too like the
> > background colour image.
>  
>  It's not possible yet.  Apparently, though, nautilus is clever enough to
>  pay attention to the background colour, and alter the text colour
>  accordingly.  As you can see, it doesn't work all the time, though...

A simpler approach would be that used by a TV station in Sydney that
shows lots of foreign films, and has to solve the same problem for its
sub-titles.  They just put a translucent gray rectangle behind the text.
That obviously would look much more elegant than the Windows solution.

>  When I asked on irc about the background thing, I found out that
>  there'll be a patch appearing in nautilus soon to put a drop shadow on
>  the text.  That'd probably help, too.  Although the translucent box
>  would be sweet.  Probably have to wait until the new Xrender module goes
>  mainstream (the one with real alpha-blending)

Ah.  True.

>    Check out the crazy nntp stuff at 
>  http://linus.differnet.com/nntp/ for proof...

Now *that* is sweet!

Cartesian browsers
------------------

Finally, in case I happen to have anyone's attention, I may as well
comment on my only other usability worry with Nautilus.  It's to do with
the fundamental nature of an X-Y grid layout of icons or previews -
they use up more screen space than the value you get from it.  (With
some notable exceptions.  The nntp example above is an excellent use of
the concept; so is the preview mode when you have lots of image files.)

But it falls down when you get to boring directories full of files that
aren't `photographic' in content.  (Perhaps because the human brain has
evolved with lots of image recognition circuitry.)

For such directories (e.g. directories full of directories or text
files), a big chunky icon has never made any usability sense to me.
I always kind of think "Okay, okay, it's a folder already.  You don't
need to consume a square inch of the screen to tell me that!"

The repetition devalues the information, I suppose.

How to solve the problem?  I confess I don't know.  It's a tricky
problem that many people have wrestled with over the years.  Both a
tree view of files (like Explorer), or columnated scrolling regions
(like the Nextstep one), are I think more effective for such
repetitious directories.

Perhaps the solution is to display the most important thing.  For image
files, it's the image.  Even for X bitmap files, the text would still be
very recognisable. :-)  But for most other text files it wouldn't.

Therefore, displaying just the name gives you both a screen space saving
and a consequent drawing speed saving.  And responsiveness is after all
a critical issue for usability (second only to predictability, perhaps).

So - probably just a legible file name is all you need, then, for such
non-graphical file types.  And let's face it, text labels are basically
one dimensional, not two, so packing them side by side makes a lot of
sense... 

Maybe the idea that some people like, where the directories are
separated from the plain files, makes some sense ... (I've never liked
it myself, but with a slight twist the idea might be useful).

If you're looking for files by name you're doing a different thing than
looking for them by content view.  So maybe splitting the directory up
by file type makes more sense.  So reserve a grid area for image file
types, displayed in an X-Y grid, and then use an explorer style view
below.

Hmmm.  Dunno.  Needs more thought, I think.

luke