Most people I know use it to store application icons, ie. Internet Explorer, Outlook (yes, most of my friends use Windows). Or links to games, whatever. You get the idea. They rarely, if never, use it as a place to store photos and music files. They go into "My Documents", "My Music", etc.
If they want to open a file that is associated with a currently running application, then yes, this is a problem. However, after observing a lot of computer-illiterate people, I have come to the conclusion that very few people *actively* multitask (I do not find running Outlook & Explorer at the same time "active multitasking"), or edit multiple documents at the same time. This is different for us powerusers, obviously.
What are you trying to say with this paragraph?
--- Now, I myself use the desktop very often. It's basically where I put the files I'm currently working on. A lot of people assume that users *first* open applications and *then* open the file using the app. I think it's the other way round: people *first* locate the file, and *then* open the associated application by clicking on it (that's a reason why the spatial metaphor was unusable for a lot of people). Taking this into account, there needs to be a place where people can easily access their 'current' files. This can be done via either Beagle (which poses a problem as then you have to have something to let beagle search for, i.o.w., your keywords must be very effective, else it will *still* take long to find the correct file) or via the desktop. The latter is a concept a lot of people understand, and by implementing a faster way to 'Show desktop' (faster than a button at least), I don't think we need something else. But, as always, that's just me. Thom Holwerda --- Main news posting guy at http://www.expert-zone.com, bringing you the OS/Computer news that really matters --- Read my blog: http://thom-holwerda.blogspot.com |