Re: [Usability] Nautilus emblems

[Alan Horkan <horkana maths tcd ie>]

On Fri, 4 Apr 2008, Andreas Nilsson wrote:

> Date: Fri, 04 Apr 2008 20:45:01 +0200
> From: Andreas Nilsson <nisses mail home se>
> To: usability gnome org
> Subject: [Usability] Nautilus emblems
>
> Dear UI people.
> Recently the issue that some of the Nautilus emblems needs updating came
> up during a Art Team meeting [1].
>
> At the same time, it was suggested that it might be wise to look into
> what emblems we should be shipping, as we were a bit uncertain if all
> the current ones made sense.

> Therefore we thought it might be best to check with the UI people what's
> the idea behind emblems

I wish I knew. I have an theory though.
Does/do emblems go back as far as Eazel or was it more recent than that?

They remind me of how Mac OS used to allow you to colour code folders, in
effect tagging them as work, important, fun, cool, etc. (there were about
7 colours and the labels were could be changed) and to put it another way
emblems seems like a crude form of built in tagging.

Emblems look interesting and are perhaps a good way to encourage users
to tag their files and get into the habit of metadata and also to have an
obvious visual cue for that tag.  Perhaps the developers had an idea of
what they wanted but didn't fully think through the big picture in exactly
those terms but I'd be sceptical about getting rid of emblems, it could
yet be a powerful idea.

If that really is the underlying concept and meaning that makes emblems
useful then perhaps the current system needs to be rejigged so that the
icons behave as a useful starter set of tags (and I really hope you
understand the gist of what I'm getting at but if not I'll try and explain
it agian better later).

-- 
Alan