On Fri, Jul 15, 2011 at 9:01 AM, John Watlington <w...@laptop.org> wrote: > >> When OS X starts up with a search box open >> instead of a blank desktop we'll know we are there :) > > What a nightmare ! I'm sorry, but once you move past trivial amounts > of information, correctly specifying the search or filtering through > the results of a loosely specified search takes forever. My laptop has > over a half-million files on it, with only a small fraction of my > photos/music/movie collection and no files older than five years old on it. > > I use iMail and Spotlight as much as the next Mac user, but finding the > right mail from (who was that ?) on (what month/year was that ?) about > a common topic can be very frustrating. Whereas the spatial localization > paradigm works wonderfully for me (perhaps as it is how I find things in > the physical world ?) If I want to find something again, I put it in a > certain place in my desktop/hierarchical file system/office/home. >
I can understand that. What if you forgot where you put it last year? I either don't remember where/how I filed something, or I specifically didn't think about it, because I knew I could search for it later. I remeber instead, the keywords I can use to bring something back up in a search. Maybe it's functionally equivlant, we should get MRIs to find out :) More relevant, has anyone studied how typical users manage a hierarchal filesystem? Do they put everything straight into My Documents? I don't have a large sample size to compare. There definitely is a spectrum of users. Casual home users who mainly use email and the internet along with downloading photos or videos from their camera. Small office users, corporate users with a WAN, users without persistent internet etc. I am sure someone has, but I haven't ever looked for this type of literature beyond reading a couple of books on web site usability years ago. Dave >> For me, I think these ideas, plus new ones we haven't thought of, >> combined with refined user interfaces developd based on user behaviors >> are the future. The more the computer can predict what you want, the >> more it can help you get your work done. You just have to give it a >> hint. > > Secretaries and personal assistants have done this for years, but I > don't believe that AI is up to the challenge yet. > Of course, this doesn't mean we shouldn't try to improve the current UIs... > > Cheers, > wad > > -- Dave Bauer d...@solutiongrove.com http://www.solutiongrove.com _______________________________________________ Sugar-devel mailing list Sugar-devel@lists.sugarlabs.org http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/sugar-devel