Reimagining Deskbar
Following Deskbar redesign proposal is based on discussion in the 3D-Accelerated Haiku Desktop RFC comment thread. One problem that came up was that current menu designs do not support good organization.
Only ways to organize a cascading menu (or variant like Deskbar and Windows start menu) is to use subcategories and separator lines. One good thing about subcategories is that you have a short description (i.e., folder name) attached to the group of items in the category, but those items are hidden most of the time and inefficient to use. Using separator lines for grouping does not affect efficiency, but does very little to aid usability. They have no describing properties and they do not visually connect items between them.
My proposal for Deskbar design that attempts to support both good organization and efficient use, is essentially a new way to visualize subcategories.
The image is from an interactive prototype I made to test this idea. The prototype requires an SVG capable browser (up-to-date versions of Firefox, Safari and Opera work). Please note that the categories and applications shown are just for illustrating functionality and not a proposal for default Deskbar organization.
If your browser supports SVG, please explore the prototype a bit before reading further.
Explanation of the proposed menu visualization and behavior
- Instead of having to click category name to show its content, we have the content listed below the category name. For example, “Browsers” catagory in the image above.
- Often everything in a category is not equally important. To solve this, we add ability to limit which items of the category are shown below its name. A complete list of items can then be accessed by clicking the category name. For example, complete content of “Internet” category, show in the image above.
- Finally, since categories can include subcategories, any item in a lower category can be shown below the name of the higher level. For example, “Firefox” and “BitTorrent” are shown below “Internet” category name in the image above.
To the best of my knowledge, exactly this type of menu has not been used anywhere. It is a combination of cascading menu and index menu that hopefully has the best qualities of both. Names and icons of items are equally well presented. Items are arranged to vertical list, which are easy to skim trough. Grouping of items should be visually obvious. Etc. There is some research results about efficiency and user preferences to vertically arranged cascading menus and index menus here
Visual appearance of this prototype is close to my idea of how this could be done, but contains some rough spots. E.g., how to visualize case where some applications do not belong to any subcategory (see “Productivity”category in the prototype).
Prior art of grouping, showing and hiding menu items
The idea of not always showing complete content of a menu has been used before by Microsoft, but their way was to “intelligently” hide items. There is also a feature in Windows XP start menu that tries to “intelligently” put often used applications to the beginning of the menu. Both of these “intelligent” features are essentially usability bloopers because they implicitly chance the interface. Although my proposal has some similarity to these, I believe it would work, because there would not be any “intelligence”. All decisions to show prominently or hide to sub level would be done explicitly by the user or have default setting that the user can chance.
OS X system preferences has some similarity to my proposal. There is grouping, but it is not visually clear in my opinion. Plus, horizontally arranged large icons with small text may look good but are not easy to skim trough, and place too much importance to the icon.
Blender's button groups interface is a clear source of visualization ideas in my proposal.
Comments?
All comments welcome. Is it appealing or an eyesore? Does it violate known usability principles? If you tried the prototype before reading the explanation, was it hard or easy to figure out how it works?
Comments
Re: Reimagining Deskbar
I like your idea and I can see that you've put quite a bit of thought into it. The concept of grouping that you propose could be more than a little bit helpful in keeping programs organized. Your prototype is great for illustrating the concept. It could work quite well if the categories themselves are carefully chosen and there aren't groups created for just one or two programs -- maybe a minimum of 4 or so could be workable. Do you think that there will be a problem of deeply-nested groups? How would you work around having a program that you have to go through 4 or more groups to get to? How are the programs in the top-level group determined (i.e. Firefox and Bittorrent in the Internet group)?
--DarkWyrm
Re: Reimagining Deskbar
It could work quite well if the categories themselves are carefully chosen and there aren't groups created for just one or two programs -- maybe a minimum of 4 or so could be workable.
I wouldn't put any hard limits on how many items a group must have. A group of one seems excessive, but if two programs are closely related only to each other, they should be in their own group. In this setup number of groups is not that detrimental since more grouping does not immediately mean more sub levels. An extra group takes only little more screen space for its name and some spacing. The name should help users to understand what the items in the group are and spacing keeps the name and items clearly together.
As for category selections, I have only one clear opinion. All programs where user produces any kind of new content (documents, images etc.) belong in same category.
Do you think that there will be a problem of deeply-nested groups? How would you work around having a program that you have to go through 4 or more groups to get to?
There shouldn't be any need for more than maybe 2-3 level nesting if the sub-levels (black backgrounds) grow as needed. For example, in the prototype all items in Network Utilities group could have been shown in the Internet group, just like all items in the Browsers group.
If the situation rises where deep nesting is unavoidable, I suppose the sub-leves (black backgrounds) would be staked kind of like they are in the prototype. With enough depth cues and ability to go back to previous level, I see no reason why deep nesting would be problematic.
How are the programs in the top-level group determined (i.e. Firefox and Bittorrent in the Internet group)?
Programs in top-level (gray backgrounds with black triangle next to name) groups would be initially selected according to what seems like a good default, but users could chance them as they like. Firefox is a safe bet for often used program so it should be easily accessible and not behind a sub-menu. In the prototype I selected Bittorrent instead of E-mail to make it seem look less like a windows xp start menu. :)
I don't propose any kind of "often used programs" functionality because those only give trouble to users. All is fine until a program they used to use disappears from where it used to be. "Last used files" functionality has the same problem.
p.s. Apologies for abusing English language and using confusing terminology :)
Re: Reimagining Deskbar
Looks like the programs'Gnome menu excepted that it's a simple cascading menu, otherwise one has to configure it to looks like yours.
Besides that, the freedekstop is used for a longtime to categorize the programs, though, as far as I know there's no sub-level.
I haven't tried the svg, but I would have put at the top-level the menu "Network Utilities", can I drag and drop it in the "programs" tab?
Can I do the same to change the category of a sub-category as well as change the sub-category of a given programs (e.g I consider e-mail app as belonging to the productivity category)?
Does the contextual menu enable the creation of levels?
Re: Reimagining Deskbar
All content in the menus was just to illustrate the idea, not a proposal for what should go where.
Drag and drop functionality for reordering, context menus for creating new categories and uninstalling programs would be the way to go. I didn't include those or keyboard use to the svg, since its not really suited for prototyping.
Re: Reimagining Deskbar
Of course and I wasn't speaking myself about the svg itself, rather as an "user" which expects some possibilities from what he is seeing. So, yes, that's good to let the hand to the user.
Since the "all programs" menu is the very top category, it's pane displays all the sub-categories expanded, does it ?
Re: Reimagining Deskbar
The very good thing is, in my opinion, osX's dock panel. If it is possible to use something of this idea...
Re: Reimagining Deskbar
The Dock isn't nearly as nice as many Mac fans would say that it is, nor is it the the perfect solution from a usability standpoint, as pointed out by usability expert Bruce Tognazzi. Example article: http://www.asktog.com/columns/044top10docksucks.html
--DW
Re: Reimagining Deskbar
Yes, may be it is bad for somebody, may be not everything in this idea is worth implementing, but the kernel of it turned out to be very suitable for me and for many other mac owners. to tell you the truth, windows taskbar and dropping start menu is not very useful too.
Re: Reimagining Deskbar
This can pretty much already be done in current Deskbar.
I already have my stuff sorted in similar categories. I did this after i got fed up with docks, they are a dead end to me now and i got rid of it on my system.
One thing to remember when thinking new stuff is not just what it bring but what you loose by implementing it. For example, now you can even edit deskbar menu with a ftp client from a distance and you can do all kind of monitoring of menu change because they use BFS file as items (and that include drag & drop support for free).
the problem with the way i use the deskbar now is that it's not user friendly to edit (at least initialy). A new user have no idea without reading a manual that the deskbar menu is just a normal directory. The solution that i did is to add a "edit this menu" at the root of the deskbar menu (at the end of the categories). So when a "user" click on it, a directory just like the deskbar menu appear and if the user don't see the connection right away... 1- he is dumb, 2- he lack basic knowledge of directory structure and should read the manual anyway :). The only other problem is that the user need to know how to make symlink (that could be fix with a backdrop image in the dir telling "mouse right click to create category, drag here with mouse right click to create symlink ". There is already the "configure be menu" but it's less intuitive. Also using tracker to edit it allow acces to attribute that could be used in the future for other deskbar option or stat tracking.
If one thing you like is to have more stuff shown with just one click, there is that weird thing about "show application expender" that always bother me. That is the little arrow allowing to not have many instance of an app clutter the deskbar. That arrow is different than the one causing a deskbar menu item from expending. I think this expender should not be there if only one instance exist, and it should look the same as the menu arrow. Once that done, the menu arrow would need to be clickable so that wanted categories would be already open if you want (indented and under the menu item, just like it's done for application "extended". I think it would add consistency without removing any feature.
As far as how the whole thing look, i have a hard time thinking of another look to the current deskbar without retinking completly the purpose. Adaptable replican shelf size, color coding perhaps. But in the end, it need to stay small
@AlienSoldier Re: Reimagining Deskbar
@AlienSoldier: that's interesting, never knew the DeskBar had it's own directory! I too like the DeskBar very much, I would only add a "cannot be covered" attribute to it, it would not allow a windows' tab to cover the DeskBar's "BeOS-logo"-part (it happens when you maximize a window, it's tab is not the whole width of the window and the DeskBar is in the upper left corner), so that one can always open the DeskBar, even when it is partially covered.
Re: Reimagining Deskbar
First, thank you and everyone else helping to make Haiku a reality
But with that being said. It seems like the closer you get. The more it looks or acts like Windows, and less it looks and acts like Be did
The great thing about Be, was the simplicity
Remember the whole better mouse trap thing. It has a good point, WHY ?
When the old mouse trap works flawlessly
You can make it pretty, you can add this and that
But that all comes at a cost to simplicity
The very worst thing about linux, is it's dam program menu
Broken down, stuck into subcategories, etc. Where do you install a new program ? Where does it fit ? does it go in productivity ? Or does it go under Office ?
When you remove the program. Does it leave it's link there ? What if it's been moved. Maybe you wanted it under a different sub category ?
The point being. Be's menu was fine, it was simple and easy
Linux has the worst menu in the history of GUI
Anything you do is going to be closer to linux
I have followed and used BeOS for many many years, and followed Haiku hoping it might be something close to be
No offense to the idea, or person behind it. But when Haiku designs a menu like the one above, with sub categories etc
That is when I'll finally move on
Give up on Be, and anything like it. Give in to M$, and throw all my Linux CDs in the trash
My god, Linux is free, and it cant compete with Windows
Because it's weak? NO, because it crashes? NO
Its because it has the stupidest menus you could ever think of
A thousand ways to do the same thing, a thousand clicks to get to nowhere
A menu system thats more confusing then anything Microsoft has ever done
Sub categories, internet, games, productivity, it's a mess
And so complex it literally drives you back to Microsoft
Re: Reimagining Deskbar
I'd have to disagree somewhat. I think Gnome's menu is fine (not a fan of KDE's menu), Windows menu people have grown to just use and Haiku's just works well. Personally i'd say focus on getting the Alpha out the door before messing with the GUI. If we can get a LiveCD into peoples hands, get people talking about the OS (and hopefully some developers behind it) then we should start messing with the GUI.
Re: Reimagining Deskbar
the best system IMO is that which requires no thinking at all.