Hi,
Very interesting ideas Mimi. May be outside the realm of immediate 0.7
design issues but good to keep in mind.
I agree that one of the limitation of folders is that precisely it piggy
backs on the "physical location" metaphor. This is good for remembering
a path but prevents any other use than retrieval through memorized
walking. The reason is apparently deeply ingrained into the human brain
(may be as an evolutionary construct so that gatherers pre hominians
could remember where food grows and is stored, a sure evolutionary
advantage...).
So the solution (for UI) is to break out of the location metaphor
altogether as you said. May be that's precisely the real breakthrough
that "tags" and "folksonomy" have achieved recently and a reason of
their success. Not something really new (from a computer science
standpoint, we've been using links and queries since years) but at last
an efficient metaphor for complex semantic linking that consumer level
users can use without being confused.
Radical idea for Chandler's UI: move away from the "storing places"
metaphor (folders) and move into a "tags" (categories) metaphor. This
will mean a different way of presenting the sidebar and may be a change
in vocabulary in the UI.
The good news is that Chandler's collections are actually closer to
"tags" than to "hierachical folders". It's also consistent with what you
propose.
Cheers,
- Philippe
Mimi Yin wrote:
Thanks for the links to the articles Philippe:
===
From: http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn3181
"The team at University College London found that the master
memorisers have neither higher IQs nor special brain structures to
explain their talent. Instead, when debriefed after the memory tests,
many admitted they always use an ancient Greek mnemonic technique
known as "method of loci".
This involves visualising yourself walking along a well-known route,
depositing images of to-be-remembered items at specific points, then
retracing your steps during recall."
So clearly, by having collections in the sidebar that can accommodate
a single item appearing in multiple collections, we're undermining the
brain's "location-based" mechanisms for 1) remembering where things
are and 2) general orientation.
*WHAT CAN WE DO ABOUT THIS IN THE SHORT-TERM:*
I'm wondering if one way to understand why users get disoriented by
having 1-item appear in 2-places is the cognitive dissonance that
arises from trying to jam virtual concepts into physical metaphors.
(ie. search folders, where folders connotes
Because OTOH, people can be incredibly flexible and agile when
navigating concepts and ideas. I think very few people would be
confused by the idea that:
Joan would show up in both of the following lists:
+ Gender: Female
+ Hair color: Brown
Instead, the model that is put forth with search folders is Joan can
be found in both:
+ Folder: Female AND
+ Folder: Brown
"Folder" is not a very helpful description of the semantics underlying
"Female" and "Brown". But the ability to define "Female" and "Brown"
as more than just generic Folders, the ability to define them in terms
of an attribute (Gender: and Hair color:) helps the user to understand
that they are simply different characteristics or facets of items.
Another reason why the ability to "attri'bute at'tributes" to
collections helps to orient users is simply the "chunking" benefits it
affords. Instead of a long list of "Folders" you can now segment the
list into "categories of categories: categories based on Gender,
categories based on Hair color."
In Chandler, we're proposing to take this "chunking down" of the
sidebar one step further, which is to group the "attributes" into
attribute types: Who v. When v. Where v. What, etc.
The final step (in the short-term) is to provide graphical-visual
indicators (aka icons) that expose these various "characteristics" of
collections (ie. This is a Who-based collection).
http://wiki.osafoundation.org/bin/view/Journal/LookingToThePhysicalWorld
*WHAT'S THE REAL SOLUTION?*
These are short-term "compensatory" measures for helping people
navigate a virtual landscape organized in terms of conceptual grouping
as opposed to physical-location-based groupings. I say short-term
because I am assuming that we aren't going to reinvent basic UI
structures (ie. the triumvirate of sidebar-summary pane and detail view).
In the long-term however, it may make much more sense to allow people
to navigate this conceptual landscape in a way that doesn't "duplicate
or triplicate" items into multiple "locations" simply because the
"locations" are defined along conceptual axes.
Instead...
+ items are arrayed on a canvas that itself has semantic meaning (ie.
like a map or a calendar)
+ items are displayed with visual cues exposing key metadata (ie. an
avatar for "who" an email is from, color for "hair color", size for
"file size" or "task size")
In this model, items would never "appear in" multiple locations,
thereby violating the "method of loci" described in Philippe's
articles. Instead, items remain singular and various ways to "slice
and dice" or "group" items emerge from visual groupings.
+ All green stuff
+ All big stuff
+ All stuff in the upper-right-hand quadrant
We already have this kind of view for calendar. It would be
interesting to explore a similar UI framework for more generic and
heterogeneous displays of data.
For more detailed descriptions of what I'm proposing,
see: http://wiki.osafoundation.org/bin/view/Journal/LookingToThePhysicalWorld
Mimi
On Jan 25, 2006, at 8:56 PM, Philippe Bossut wrote:
Grant Baillie wrote:
A "+" button next to the "Appears In..." item in the detail view as
a clue?
Or making the whole "Appears In..." field editable.
Anyway, I remember that we played with a similar idea in Entourage
and implemented "search folders" so that, indeed, emails appeared in
different places (instead of being filtered and moved). This feature
tested terribly. It's somewhat disorienting for people to have one
thing appearing in 2 places at the same time...
Cheers,
- Philippe
PS: on the subject of locations (places) and items, it seems that
some of it is so hard wired in our brains that using it is the best
memory strategy known. See:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/3152502.stm
http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn3181
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