Multiple desktops in the monitor or multiple monitors on the desktop?

Why do we need multiple desktops? This is the question that I had after reading the article Thoughts about the interfaces of future Windows . I admit, I was slightly intrigued by the author’s suggestion that for desktop operating systems it would be better to simply “break the interface from mobile operating systems like iOS and Android”. And I was completely puzzled by the statement that the desktop OS simply needs a “multi-desktop” desktop. My article is an attempt to analyze the need for such an organization of the desktop operating system user space. Most of the reasoning (as far as possible I tried to back them up with sound logic :) is based on my own experience of using multi-server operating systems and third-party tools that allow to emulate such behavior in the family of MS Windows operating systems.

Mobile devices

In mobile devices, the application of the paradigm of several desktops is appropriate and understandable - in this way, designers of mobile operating system UIs solve the problem of lack of space on the screens of mobile devices that do not yet have high resolutions. And hardly ever, this problem in mobile devices will be solved in a different way - a multi-screen screen, in my opinion, a panacea for many years. Because the increase in resolution will not do anything. Buttons and other active elements will still not be done less - otherwise there will be a problem of user interaction with the touch interface elements. Or you will have to go back to the stylus, which everyone who has used it, probably now only in nightmares :)
And the dimensions of mobile devices traditionally must remain compact - and the smaller they are, the more desirable they will be for the consumer. And this imposes an inescapable limitation on the size of the display, which must be compact enough so that the device comfortably lies in the user's hand. In my opinion, the majority of modern communicators, in pursuit of a diagonal, have already lost a female consumer audience :) A friend of mine told me that she wanted to buy HTC HD2, but when she came to the salon to watch it live, she almost burst into tears. The apparatus, according to her, turned out to be just huge and because of this, it was bad in his hand.

Desktops

Here, in my opinion, the situation is completely different. The screen resolution has long reached quite comfortable values, there are no restrictions on the diagonal - at least 100 inches. Although the convenience of perception of information when using such a display is, of course, questionable - except for watching a movie :) If you use this space wisely - several desktops will be just superfluous. But those users who are accustomed to using multiple desktops on their monitor will undoubtedly bring a lot of arguments why it is convenient. Well, they have the right to defend their point of view. And I will express my own in this section:

Several desktops or one?

I will try to finally answer the question posed in the title of the article. Users always love to split into two camps for any reason and fiercely defend the rightness or advantage of their position, using any arguments and arguments. Anticipating such wars in the comments to this article, I will hasten to reassure the participants of future bloody wars - there is no universal solution! I am sure that anyone can give at least one example when multi-desktop organization of the desktop is simply indispensable, and, on the contrary, when it really interferes.
Leading OS developers, such as Microsoft, Apple, etc., have been trying to ease the task of placing applications and other active elements into the user's desktop space as quickly as possible. For example, the reworked Windows 7 taskbar, in my opinion, almost completely solves this problem - with its seeming simplicity, this is probably the largest and most useful improvement in the entire history of Windows OS, summarizing the experience of many years and experiments with the user interface.
')

Usability

And finally, some personal thoughts about the usability of several desktops on one monitor. Personally, I have never been close to the idea of ​​multi-desktop - in my opinion this is inconvenient. I have tried many times to work with several desktops on Linux, Windows (MultiDesktop-managers from both Microsoft and third-party manufacturers) - I will not give specific examples, because half I still don’t remember. The main thing that I did not like about them was that sometimes the windows were “lost”. They were lost because previewers of the contents of the desktops are usually very scarce (I don’t know - maybe the situation is better now) - so you often have to spend time searching for a “lost” window. And the constantly changing context of perception is not the best test for concentrating the user's attention.

About future

You can talk for a long time and come up with concepts and ideas for a new interface for future operating systems. I can add only one thing. UI design is one of the most intensively and dynamically developing branches in IT today. What interfaces await us in the future - we do not know reliably and all our assumptions in most cases will remain just assumptions. Because new discoveries in science and inventions do not cease to amaze us and make us constantly reconsider our attitude to ordinary things. And no matter how hard we try to predict how everything will be in 10 years - I am sure that when this period passes, we will not cease to be surprised and to believe that new and even more surprising discoveries await us.