Spatial Is Not Easier [LWN.net]

Spatial Is Not Easier

Posted May 19, 2004 15:00 UTC (Wed) by LogicG8 (guest, #11076)
In reply to: Spatial Is Not Easier by Prototerm
Parent article: The Spatial Way

I agree,
It's a good thing(tm) for a GUI to follow a physical metaphor (like the
"real world" concept of nested folders) to lessen the learning curve. I
feel however like it is a rather poor idea to bring along the complications
and annoyances of that metaphor. In a computer you are not inhibited by the
physical properties of actual objects. In the real world I make a mess of
my desktop if want to look at a few different files from a few different
folders that were nested in folers themselves. The real world folder system
is messy and complicated. Why would I want to translate that mess that is
unavoidable because of the physical properties of folders onto my computer
desktop which is not encumbered by physical constraints? Oh yes, because
it follows the metaphor more completely and makes it easier to learn...
Except the Internet and more specifically the world wide web are now facts
of life. The spatial metaphor falls rather flat on its face when presented
with the mass tangle of pages that is the web. So your users have to learn
the browsing metaphor anyway. That is a mistake. If you are concerned with
simplicity don't make your users learn multiple metaphors. Have one
metaphor and be consistent with it. Apple the undisputed champion of
usability dropped the spatial metaphor. What does that tell you?

On a rather separate rant:
The windows registry is the one of the most complicated horrible design
decisions I have ever seen. It stinks. Anyone who has been elbow deep in
it trying to find some small undocumented setting or tried to back out
changes made by a failed install program or get rid of some
{spy,mal,ad}ware program or worst of all had the registry corrupted or any
of the million and one things that can and do go wrong with the registry
knows how bad it is. Why oh why on earth would you do anything remotely
like it? I backed up all my settings yesterday and it was easy. Why?
Because they were all flat text files.

(Log in to post comments)

gconf uses flat text files

Posted May 19, 2004 15:30 UTC (Wed) by emk (subscriber, #1128) [Link]

Not to rain on anybody's parade, but gconf stores all your preferences in flat text files (at least the last time I looked). And furthermore, it actually has full documentation for most of them, right in the GUI editor. There's a lot of differences between the registry and gconf, and nearly all of them are in gconf's favor.

gconf's a little bit arcane, certainly, but many of the criticisms people are raising are factually incorrect.

I've used Gnome since about version 0.20, but 2.4 and 2.6 are the first versions I've really liked.

Spatial Is Not Easier

Posted May 19, 2004 15:32 UTC (Wed) by Alan_Hicks (subscriber, #20469) [Link]

Bingo. You hit the nail on the head. Computers are not the real world. File systems are not a collection of real files. These are abstractions. We create abstractions because they are easier for us to deal with than the real things they represent. Layers of abstraction are created to make things easier, and browser based navigation is a higher layer of abstraction than spatial. Sometimes lower layers are preferred. I still do most of my work on the commandline, but my e-mail is read in a GUI client. I browse the web primarily with a GUI browser. I navigate my filesystem with a browser-like navigator.

I simply think the GNOME developers have gotten extremely arrogant. They display a "we know what's best for you" attitude that just sticks in my craw. I'm sorry, but I won't be using GNOME 2.6. The one and only feature they've added which I like, is the new open/save dialogue window. This should be easily worked in xfce, my current linux desktop of choice.

Arrogant GNOME developers?

Posted May 19, 2004 16:19 UTC (Wed) by coulamac (subscriber, #21690) [Link]

The GNOME developers made a design decision to make spatial nautilus the default mode. Why does that make them arrogant? Browser Nautilus is still readily available by many different means of access-- it's one right-click away, for instance. They left you the choice to browse by another means.

The developers of any desktop must make design decisions at some point or another. Sometimes, developers are willing to go against the usual way of doing things and try another way, which they feel has usability advantages. Maybe they're right about the usability advantages. Maybe they're wrong. You, however, are stomping on them for trying to do something out of the ordinary by calling them "arrogant." God forbid anyone try to move out of the Windows browser paradigm for a minute!

The bottom line is that the developers who write the code and maintain the code get to make the design decisions. That is the way that all freesoftware works. The Nautilus developers made a daring (maybe inspired, maybe ill-conceived) change to spatial file browsing as the default. Time will tell whether they are right or wrong. You, however, are the one being arrogant to say that your dislike of the *default* mode of browsing reflects the arrogance of the developers who take the time and energy to write and maintain the code.

Arrogant GNOME developers?

Posted May 19, 2004 22:01 UTC (Wed) by illtyd (guest, #2124) [Link]

The GNOME developers made a design decision to make spatial nautilus the default mode. Why does that make them arrogant?

Because they have removed currently existing methods for changing defaults. This is even more applicable to the WM discussions above, but note this from the page referred to in the article

It's also interesting to note that newer releases of Nautilus will have this available as an option in the Preferences (Edit -> Preferences) dialog - but currently, your only way is to make an edit within GConf itself.

I haven't noticed any refutation of the comment earlier that suggested this option was going back in so quickly because of all the comments.

Arrogant GNOME developers?

Posted May 19, 2004 23:14 UTC (Wed) by stephenjudd (guest, #3227) [Link]

If a change is going in quickly because of lots of comments, that seems like responsiveness and humility to me.

Arrogant GNOME developers?

Posted May 20, 2004 9:34 UTC (Thu) by ekj (subscriber, #1524) [Link]

If people implement a change, even after *knowing* that a large part of the users are going to hate the change, would it be too much to ask to leave a button to change it back to the old default somewhere in the preferences-gui ?

Spatial Is Not Easier

Posted May 19, 2004 20:22 UTC (Wed) by tjc (guest, #137) [Link]

It's a good thing(tm) for a GUI to follow a physical metaphor (like the "real world" concept of nested folders) to lessen the learning curve.

Well, I'm not so sure. You learn the metaphor once, but you're stuck with the limitations imposed by the metaphor for as long as you use it. So the longer you use it, the less productive it becomes.

From the article:

"It sticks to the fact that people associate better with the computer's interface when they know that files and folders seem real..."

This statement is not fact, its supposition. Most of UI design is based on what one assumes to be true about user interaction with computers, based on observation. Its the author's opinion, one that he shares with the majority of the current UI development community, which is probably why he feels comfortable stating his opinion as "fact." Safety in numbers, and all that.

So your users have to learn the browsing metaphor anyway... If you are concerned with simplicity don't make your users learn multiple metaphors. Have one metaphor and be consistent with it.

Excellent point, one worth pondering for a while...