Re: [Usability] The Desktop: useful or just a relic?

[Matthew Thomas <mpt myrealbox com>]

Maciej Katafiasz wrote:
> Dnia 04-06-2005, sob o godzinie 07:36 +1200, Matthew Thomas napisał:
>
> > That doesn't matter as long as you don't have to do your filing straight
> > away. You can leave stuff on your desktop until you have time to clean
> > it up, whether that be once a day, or once a week, or once a month. Just
> > like a real desktop. (Except that dumping stuff on your virtual desktop
> > doesn't make the surface uneven.)
>
> And just with real desktop, the result would be great mess you'd have to
> clean up once a {week, month, year}, and would put off for as long as
> possible, since it's a pain. And then, when you actually got around to
> doing that, it'd take you 4h to do,
> ...

However long it took you to do, it would take you *less* time than the 
current system. The current system forces you to file one document at a 
time, only remembering the folder for consecutive items; but with filing 
stuff from the desktop, you can locate a folder and drag everything that 
belongs in it into it at once. (I'm not counting the time lost in my 
design from reopening a long-untouched file to remind yourself what it 
was before filing it; but nor am I counting the time lost from dataloss 
because of the ellenfeissitude of the current design.)

> I don't advocate burdening user with micro-management tasks, but desktop
> is not a good place for "things you don't know what to do with". It's
> hard enough to keep up with stuff I put manually on my desk, apps doing
> that additionally ain't gonna help. OTOH, desktop is marvellous place to
> _manually_ put stuff you're working on atm.
> ...

Whatever room your desk is in, I doubt it has a security guard at the 
door who physically prevents you from leaving until you decide whether 
you want to "save" the work you were just doing. You wouldn't tolerate 
something that obnoxious in the physical world. You only tolerate it 
from desktop operating systems because there isn't yet a popular 
counterexample.

--
Matthew Thomas
http://mpt.net.nz/