Re: [Usability] Re: My humble experience about file management through applications(was: [Yet Another] New File Chooser Design)

[Julien Olivier <julo altern org>]

> I agree. I watched this in the past, too. However in companies it's 
> mostly not possible to work with this mental model. In the beginning we 
> had a network directory for Word and one for Excel and another for our 
> CAD system. But a few years ago we changed to a project oriented file 
> system structure. We were not sure, whether this would really be the 
> best way, but now we see that it's the only possible solution here. Our 
> old structure would have increased problems further on. So even our 
> unexperienced users had to learn that all our data is stored on a 
> special shared drive. And it works pretty well. At BMW where I worked as 
> an electrical engineering intern they had a project oriented structure, 
> too, that was quite deep as you can imagine. But it was could for team 
> working and cross team working (integration).
> 

Well, it seems we had a fairly similar experience then. It's very true
to say that, in some cases, files have to be organized in projects
instead of being organized by file type. But, as you say, most
unexperienced users have to learn this mental model because, for a
reason I ignore, the other mental model seems more natural to them.
Maybe in this case, the right way is to use Nautilus to create the
documents: you create a folder for your project somewhere on your
network and place a shortcut on your users' desktop (or, even better,
the shared folder would be automagically detected and displayed on the
user's desktop). Then, there should be a way to create a new document of
any type from the folder's Nautilus window. 
That way, if you work using the "application model", you still don't
have to worry much about the file hierarchy, but if you decide to (or
are forced to) use the "file-system" model, apps still work because you
will start with an already-created empty document (thus no need to use
the file open/save dialog).

> I think this is a good idea because it helps unexperienced users to 
> manage their data in a good way without thinking about it.
> 
> However, what I meant above is: Because there's more and more work 
> everyone does with the computer and all gets more and more connected the 
> application oriented mental model will lead into problems more and more. 
> Thus it's time to support the user to get a different mental model from 
> the beginning on. Since the user does not have any mental model about 
> this topic in the beginning at all (I assume this. Does anyone know 
> something different, like the desktop and folder model?), there is no 
> need that a new user will get this mental model. It's just because of 
> the history of DOS, Windows, ... But there's no need for it.

Obviously the way forward (as I see it) is to totally hide the file
system from the user and a database-like organization for your files so
that, depending on the need, you can open the files matching a certain
type, or all the files related to a given project, and you wouldn't save
files in given places but simply tag your files with the right keywords.
But, well, that's the future and we're not here yet, sadly :( More over,
I guess such a database-oriented organization would be broken when users
have to decide from/to which shared folder, or on which hard
drive/partition they want to load/save their files.

-- 
Julien Olivier <julo altern org>