The video for the BumpTop 3D Desktop Prototype sure is fun to watch, and I imagine it'd be even more fun to actually play around with, and I'm certainly all in favor of experimental interface design. But I have to say: building a whole new file management model to recreate the fuzzy, half-ordered clutter of piles of paper on a real-world desktop doesn't exactly float my boat. I have dozens of piles of real paper in my house right now, and they drive me crazy. What I love about my computer is that it doesn't let me create piles. (Hat tip to Jason for the original link.)
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agreed. the only interesting (and impressive, entertaining, mind blowing) aspect of this piece of software is the accuracy in which a desktop is recreated. we should be impressed by the realism of these physics... "the cgi".
but we should not be using it for the intended purpose :)
Posted by: frans leys | June 24, 2006 at 06:56 AM
A few quick thoughts:
1) It might actually be more functional if it were two-dimensional rather than three. (Plus, I wouldn't feel like peeking into the office of a doll's house.) For the most part, the 3-D effects feel gratuitous.
2) Implicit in this design is the replacement of the mouse with the pen. Most of the movements can be done with a mouse, of course; but they're much more easily performed with a pen-style interface -- particularly the lasso (or "lassoo") through the middle movement. That in itself poses a significant obstacle to its adoption.
3) Briefly, what does this interface add that's of value? What problem does it solve? Like most novel designs, it offers some productive disorientation, which is always fun and thought-provoking and worth an experiment. But I don't see where it can let me do something that I need to do (or even something I didn't know I needed to do) that I can't do now with a WIMP interface.
Posted by: Rob | June 24, 2006 at 12:12 PM
Having just watched the video again, I'd like to comment on the one aspect of the interface that I did like: the idea of "prioritizing" certain files or folders. In this interface, they use sizing and "crumpling" to achieve this effect. But it might just as easily be accomplished through color-coding. If I'm working through several versions of a document, it might be nice to have them automatically color-coded by age, and also to have the ability to manually color-code them, too. Not sure if this feature is available in other interfaces...
Posted by: Rob | June 24, 2006 at 12:29 PM