Re: [Usability] Mezzo interface [was Re: nautilus ... ]

[Eric Larson <elarson novell com>]

On Fri, 2005-07-15 at 13:31 +0200, Diego Moya wrote:
> > I'm pretty sure Mezzo would only serve to move the mess from my Desktop to
> > my Documents folder but it could be an interesting novelty.
> 
> I find the separation of the Desktop content into five areas (four
> corners + desklets) quite useful in that regard. Actually Ubuntu has
> arrived almost to the same solution with their separate action-based
> "Apps, Places, System" menu.
> 
> Those seem to be the relevant actions of current educated computer
> users: launch dedicated working environments (i.e. main applications),
> launch transient applications (desklets), find content (document
> search & browsing), and configure the computer settings & peripherals.
> Having a separate place for each of them seems an improvement over the
> 30-years-old "desktop as universal container" metaphor.

I have to disagree with your analysis regarding the separation between a
user launching apps and then finding content. Most users rarely
associate content outside the scope of a particular application. A
document or email is most often seen within the context of the
respective application. To turn this back to the initial thoughts of how
this fits into user putting things on the desktop, a good example can be
seen in how some use bookmarks on their desktop. Some users create a
bookmark for their favorite sites on the desktop and then click those
bookmarks to visit the site, closing the browser each time before going
to the next bookmark. While I don't think this is the most common use,
it makes it clear that a document is considered primarily within the
context of the application that works with it. 

Eric