Productivity and ergonomics

Disclaimer

It is proposed to discuss the concept of ergonomic intuitive interface and organization of information, or at least just to think. Much has been discussed more than once, much has been corrected. Everything written below is a purely personal opinion of the author. Although specific examples are used, the emphasis is on a general approach, which is actually proposed to be revised. Changes in this direction exist, but they are rare and often unsystematic.

Why do we need it

Over time, information accumulates so much that it is sometimes difficult to quickly find something if you do not spend time organizing information more than searching for it. Even if you happen to meet something that does not yet represent value, we will go further without paying attention; after a week, we may not remember where we were met, and attempts to find it would fail.

It so happens that computers have been developing for a long time in a direction that has nothing to do with their use directly, and many aspects were designed without anyone looking to the future. The same keyboard layout that came from typewriters, the same processor architecture, optimized one time for writing code on machine language. The same problem is 2000. Of course, the architecture suffered a lot of changes, Dvorak appeared, which was not widely used by habit; and the problem was not such a problem, but the fact remains.

Browser history is essentially a web surfing log. But most of the time, it doesn’t matter to us in what sequence we looked through the villages when we were looking for something - but rather, what track at that time was playing or with whom we copied that day. You can raise the history of the player or the archive of correspondence, but agree, it is not very convenient. In addition, we could use several browser windows, and all that will be in the log is the date and time.
')
When we save something of interest, we put it in our file system: most often, the logical connection with the source is lost at the same moment. But if the object still does not represent a great value for us, we, most likely, simply throw it off into the next temp.

And then come the long search, randomly found "Easter eggs", which we recently so diligently sought. You can spend time on the organization, you can use the software that allows you to work with the tags, but it costs time and distracts from the ultimate goal.

For different tasks we use different applications, and when moving from the browser to the document viewer, the history thread will break. Visiting the page again, we will see the previously viewed links highlighted in a different color, but we won’t find out if we saved it somewhere, or just opened it, losing it from the temporary files folder later. By the way, most browsers, when you open the file again, download it again and save a copy next to it.

Erase the boundary between goal and action

I believe that history should be united, and be stored in chains, including all types of objects. They switched from a page to a pdf file, sent a letter to someone, mentioning something from the last one, opened a link from the reply to the letter and then saved something to the report - all this had one goal and was one logical unit. When we copy text, the source must be stored in the metadata. Exaggerating, also what pages were open at that time, what track was playing, and where we copied it (after all, we can then decide to move it again). There should be a handy tool that allows easy navigation through the history and the use of flexible filters.

History chains may also be stored in file properties. The history of file renames, the history of discoveries and edits, and where it was taken from. Though it is expensive, it will provide an opportunity to trace the beginning, without puzzling about what else we thought then, will allow viewing the history even after moving the file to another computer.

The use of complex unique identifiers for each file will also be convenient. And there are usually no problems with storage volumes and capacities today.

Discreteness of programs for working with different types of files is a barrier, and one more factor distracting from the goal. Of course, there can be no universal tool, but tightly integrating your product with all related tools and leaving open interface specifications for those who want to integrate their product with ours is a duty.

We should also mention the effectiveness of memory cards in structuring information. Perhaps this is the way to display, which will erase the boundaries between types of information and forget about all the nuances that we are doomed to think only because it has always been like this. IT is a tool and nothing more.

Thanks to those who read it, and those who did not finish it. The author will be grateful for the criticism and intrigued by the development of the discussion.