Re: [Usability] Desktop Clutter

[Alan Horkan <horkana maths tcd ie>]

On Wed, 24 Oct 2007, Jacob Beauregard wrote:

> Date: Wed, 24 Oct 2007 20:57:08 -0400
> From: Jacob Beauregard <jake13jake comcast net>
> To: usability gnome org
> Subject: [Usability] Desktop Clutter
>
> Why does the desktop get so easily cluttered?

I'll assume you do not have $HOME set as your Desktop.

> 1. default download space (for firefox)

I usually set up a default folder such as Downloads or Documents but
frankly I've long wished I could automatically filter and file my incoming
downloads as easily as I could filter my email.

> 2. fastest way to create an pre-named document (right-click menu)

I tend to be more tasked based and rarely create named documents in that
way and do not right click very often either so I'd be surprised if this
was a big factor for most people.  (Even when using the terminal I'm more
likely to pipe some output to a file than to name and create it first
before doing something with it.)

> 3. middle ground for moving files around

This is a very good point and a problem we could probably do quite a few
things to address.

Previously people have discussed various tools from other systems which
resembled a shelf or a drawer and made it simpler to drag and drop files
from place to place.  Similarly improving the Send to menu could help
users move files around but it would be preferable to find ways to keep
things organised rather than tidy them up after the fact.

I vaguely recall Microsoft providing users with a tool to clear
infrequently used items from the desktop.  I think I've seen tools for
tidying and file management which do things like clear out zero size files
or group files in various ways which help users to then file them away
someplace a little more organised, but again these tools help clear the
mess after the fact.  (I bet a few minutes on Sourceforge or Freshmeat
could turn up quite a few good little utilities.)

In the past I've suggested creating more default folders in Documents for
major file types such as Music, Pictures, Spreadsheets, etc. and this is
what I do myself.  You could take that further and have many subfolders to
organise things but not everyone is going to spend all that much time
sorting or organising things in that way which is why I'm optimistic a
combination of a little bit of organisation and then an overlay of tags
and a high level search system will really help out most users. (One
might think a well tagged search space wouldn't need much organising but
if a little extra effort is made to organising it potentially makes a
search for something such as "all spreadsheets" significantly more
efficient.)

Lots of potential here, file management is still preoccupies many of us
... and I didn't even mention more radical non-desktop ideas like how OLPC
uses a journal type system to organise things in an entirely different
way.

-- 
Alan