Re: [Usability] Desktop Clutter

["Matthew Nuzum" <newz bearfruit org>]

On 10/25/07, Alan Horkan <horkana maths tcd ie> wrote:
> > 3. middle ground for moving files around
>
> 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 would like something like this. I've tried a few of the tools out
there and not been too happy with them. They take up too much space
when not in use and they tend to be optimized for the bottom of the
screen (which interferes with the way I use my computer). The area of
the screen I never use is the left hand side (top has panel, bottom
has panel for some, right has scroll bar) so would love a tool that
works well over there.

> 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.

A couple of comments:
I started out creating folders for Pictures, Spreadsheets, Etc. but
things got jumbled up. Now I create folders for projects and then in
each there is a hierarchy such as source images, planning documents,
source code, etc. It makes finding things much easier for me. There
are probably a few different ways GNOME could create default folders
and choosing one would alienate or perplex the 75% of people who use a
different technique.

Desktops look messy in GNOME (in part) because
 * Icons are different sizes (JPGs have massive icons compared to
folders and documents, PNG and SVG images with transparency can have
very oddly sized icons compared to other files)
 * File names are shown in full, causing them to overlap other documents
 * The grid isn't a grid, but is actually a series of columns...
apparently you can place icons arbitrarily on a vertical axis but they
snap into columns on a horizontal axis.

See my desktop: http://code.bearfruit.org/~matt/tmp/DesktopClutter.jpg

Notes
* See web shortcut icons on the right? Long names take up a lot of space
* (off-topic, why don't the icons use the favicon from the website?)
* Note near the middle the picture with the 07 in it. Far larger than
the folder or document icons
* Note the icon two below that (card_left_new[1].gif) - this is a very
small image, therefore it has a very tiny icon
* Note one icon below that (CaptchaConcept.svg) - this is an SVG
document that is mostly transparent, therefore the icon appears to be
far disconnected from the file name text below it
* See the icons near the bottom left - it takes effort to get them to
line up horizontally. I choose to exert this effort in many cases, but
its too much of a chore to keep up on it.

I realize its easy to criticize but hard to fix.

-- 
Matthew Nuzum
newz2000 on freenode