Re: [Usability] spatial nautilus concerns

[Alan Horkan <horkana maths tcd ie>]

On Fri, 22 Oct 2004, David Feldman wrote:

> Date: Fri, 22 Oct 2004 23:20:45 -0400
> From: David Feldman <mailing-lists interfacethis com>
> To: Christian Schneider <c schneider scram de>
> Cc: Usability List <usability gnome org>
> Subject: Re: [Usability] spatial nautilus concerns
>
> > Open in same window and the Tree belong together in my opinion. It
> > just doesn´t make much sense to use them separately. The other
> > advantage of combining the options is
> > that a user who sees a spatial window knows that a new window will
> > open with left click.
> > If he sees a browser window he knows a click opens the new folder in
> > the same window.
>
> I'm skeptical that the problems introduced by two separate but
> similar-looking filesystem-navigation tools are outweighed by those
> that might be solved by avoiding a hybrid solution in each. Again,
> testing might illuminate this issue further.
>
> I also suspect that the Mac-style treeview (which doesn't involve two
> separate panes) is more usable than the current one (which is similar
> to that used in Windows).

Nautilus, Edit, Preferences:  Tree View, Show only Folders.  Disable it

The functionality is already there, should not be a massive task to
make it available as a main window view.

I am very used to the Windows Explorer Tree view, and I still find it
bizarre when Nautilus lists (Empty) in the tree view even though the
folder does contain files but is merely empty of subfolders.

If you have a very large collection of files and folders (a few thousand
mp3s for example) the treeview can become massive (i suspect the Microsoft
Explorer uses the split to make things a little more robust and keep it
from getting out of hand).  The mix of spatial and treeview that you can
have with the mac makes it very straightforward to reparent the tree view
and stop it from getting too massive.

I had a point I was getting to but no it escapes me ...

Certainly a Mac style treeview would be nice to have and I suspect there
are requests filed already (I'm pretty sure I've been so told on more than
one occassion).

> The problem is that in the tree you have to remember you're only looking
> at folders, while in the main pane you see everything. Even as a fairly
> experienced user I still periodically have "where are my files?" moments
> looking at the side pane.

I find that very interesting because although I started with Apples in
school and used them extensively I have used Windows based PCs much more I
have never been as comfortable with the style Mac Treeview.

Speaking of the Mac reminds of me of when the spatial model fails users
(or users fail to fully understand the extent of the metaphor, but I hate
to blame the users for entirely reasonable confusion).  About a year ago I
encountered a user who quite thought her document had been deleted, it
seemed to be gone.  The problem was that "Auto Arrange" (or equivalent)
was not turned on here was a cluster of files in one corner of the spatial
window and about a screen height away with lots of blank space in between,
and the need to scroll the window to find the other files, completely
misdirected her.  The real life metaphor would be the document falling off
you desk and ending up underneath it.
It could have been her familiarity with Windows, usually setup to arrange
files together that caused some of the confusion but I thought it was a
real life observation that was worth mentioning especially if you are
considering actual testing of the spatial model.

> Apple avoided this by providing a single,
> unified tree with both files and folders.  And incidentally, it also has
> the advantage of being more agnostic in terms of getting along with
> either the spatial or the navigation paradigm.

Sincerely

Alan Horkan

http://advogato.org/person/AlanHorkan/
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