Moving Away From WIMP Interfaces One Step at a Time
While the capabilities of operating systems have improved over the last years, the improvements have largely focused on under the hood changes. New functionality is reaching the user via additional applications which allow her to write a DVD, connect to her mp3 player, download streaming video locally and other tasks which were not present before. But the graphical interface of the computer itself is keeping the same concepts introduced with its appearance. One could argue that the graphical environment of computers is exactly the same for the last 10 years and only cosmetic changes take place in newer versions of operating systems. Moving away from the desktop metaphor is harder than it seems. Even alternative operating systems have embraced the concept instead of exploring new ideas. This article describes a solution which attempts to free the user from the files/folder concept.
Current situation
Microsoft and Apple have a huge customer base. Making radical changes to the user interface (UI) is almost impossible. As I explained in my previous article, I disagree with the fact that everyone is excited with 3D candy coming on the desktop and nobody attempts to correct its existing shortcomings. I also argued that even in the open source world most prominent projects assume that the desktop metaphor is the one true solution. There are exceptions to this but a truly alternative idea has failed to catch on.
While GNU/Linux might be considered an alternative operating system, its graphical interfaces are not alternative at all. In order to reach mainstream acceptance, KDE, GNOME (and XFCE) developers have followed the tried and true approach of imitating the interface of the dominant operating system(s). They have done an excellent job and by all means, office workers can easily migrate to KDE or GNOME. I congratulate them for their efforts since what they have achieved is truly amazing work. So now that we can accommodate for users that like the desktop metaphor, it is time to explore other ideas too.
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