Re: [Usability] making the conceptual model more concrete

[Daniel Borgmann <spark-mailinglists web de>]

On Thu, 2003-07-03 at 18:24, David Adam Bordoley wrote:
> The biggest of these is probably the documents vs. application debate. This 
> is a really important starting point because it affects how the user 
> interacts with the ui. Currently we have a ui where users can open a file in 
> a proxy application. They're not really editting the document instead they 
> are editing a representation of the document within the application. The 
> application can be started or quit from the menus etc. This is pretty much 
> the model used within mac osX and osX does alot to make the model obvious to 
> the user. FWIW, I think the one reason apple can get away with this ui is 
> that they have a global menubar which provides a visual connection between 
> the different windows. In gnome quit is particularly odd, because there is 
> no strong visual connection between different windows, there is only a very 
> mentally hidden connection (hence my adversion to the menu item). 
> 
> The other option is a document ui. In a document ui, there is a 1-to-1 
> relationship between the icon in the file manager and window it is viewed 
> in. If the file is moved while open, the window will follow the icon. for 
> instance if the file is renamed the window title of the file will change to 
> reflect the new name etc. In a document model you don't really have 
> applications that you start or quit. Instead you open documents from the 
> file manager. Another difference would be the replacement of the 
> "Applications" menu with a "New" menu from which users could choose what 
> kind of document they wished to create. The use of file selectors in such a 
> ui would greatly diminish. 


How would such a document UI translate to applications which don't
operate on documents? Like a media player, a game or even a web browser.
I always wonder if it wouldn't be a good idea to make a clear cut
between the two models and make document handlers document centric and
other applications application centric.
I believe that this would resemble reality much more closely, both "real
life" reality (we both work with documents and use devices in our lifes)
and computing reality (what people practically use their computers for).
Maybe I just completely misunderstood you. If the Applications menu
would indeed be replaced with a New menu, how would I open a game or
browse to a website? How would I check my dates on a calender? 
Even though Apple has no document UI, I believe that they are somehow
doing this split with their Aqua and Metal UIs. Everything which doesn't
handle documents seems to be converted to a Metal UI. Take iCal, iChat,
iTunes, Finder or even Safari. Some people argue they use the Metal UI 
just because it looks nifty and break their own HIG[1] on the way, but I
don't really believe that... A web browser for example might not
resemble a digital device, but it still functions more like a virtual
digital device, not like a document. Same for the finder, iCal, etc.
Even though you could understand a single HTML page as a document, the
closest real world "thing" I would compare to a web browser would be an
interactive TV set.
I'm just curious, am I completely missing the boat? If not, I would be
very interested to hear your opinion on this.

Daniel


[1] http://makeashorterlink.com/?F52916525