Sounder 7 usability notes

[Scott James Remnant]

On Wed, 2004-09-01 at 11:25 +0100, Mark Shuttleworth wrote:

> We should optimise for the common case. 90% of the time when I'm 
> double-clicking on a folder inside nautilus, I want to open that window 
> and close the current one.
> 
The really interesting thing about Spatial mode is how it does optimise
for the common case for ordinary users, but power users such as
ourselves react (initially) violently to it because it doesn't optimise
for us.

Go take a look at a non-techy user ($JANE); I learned a lot from looking
at how Jenny and my Mother use their computers.

Ordinary users have lots of folders, usually on their desktop or just in
their home directory in which they have lots of files.

They don't create complex trees of nested folders and generally *do*
want the parent folder still open after opening a new one.

My mother will generally open the home directory, then the Pictures
directory, and copy things from one to the other.


I'm going to use my "I have an eye for desktop" veto <g> and rule that
we're leaving nautilus as it is for now ;-)


Like nearly everyone else, I hated spatial when it first appeared.  Then
I actually caught myself *using* nautilus as a file manager; something
I'd never done before.

> Straw poll: when you navigate through folder hierarchies in spatial 
> mode, do you usually want to leave the old folder open, or have it 
> closed when you move to the next folder?
> 
So, here's a few interesting points...

Why does it actually matter that you've got all the parent folders open
when using a deeply-nested folder?  Are you sure you're not just having
a religious reaction to having more than one window open?  Are you a
"Maximize Kid" ?

If you know you want to navigate a deep tree, use Browse Folder (on the
menu) instead.

Or navigate spatially, and once you've found the folder you're looking
for, press Ctrl-Shift-W.

Or when you go to close the folder you were looking for, use "Close All
Folders" from the File menu, instead of "Close".  (Remember, ordinary
users use these menus and don't tend to learn keyboard shortcuts too
much).

Scott
-- 
Have you ever, ever felt like this?
Had strange things happen?  Are you going round the twist?
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