task-oriented kickoff

[Riccardo Iaconelli]

On 3/3/08, Michael Rudolph <michael.rudolph at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Hello everyone,
>
> while we're at the task of improving kickoff, I'd like to tell you my
> thoughts of what should be improved about kickoff and my ideas for how
> it could be done.
>
> Currently kickoff is an application launcher interface and thus, in my
> point of view, is putting the spotlight on the wrong items of our user
> interface.
>
> Instead of making kickoff be about applications, why not let tasks take
> center stage in the start-menu? After all, it's tasks that we really
> want to get done when we use a computer, applications are just the
> necessary means to do it with current technology.
>
> There is already a lot of interesting technology in place (since win95,
> in fact), so the transition from an app-centric user interface to a
> task-centric one could be evolutionary, rather than revolutionary,
> which is a good thing in my book.
>
> For starters we could put the recent documents tab up front. This is as
> good as it currently gets in terms of giving users access to their
> current tasks and projects. I'd also rename the tab to "current tasks".
>
> We could start to give better descriptions in applications' .desktop-
> files. So instead of having "Word Processing" in kword's file, we would
> put "Write a letter" or "Write a resumé" in there and launch kword with
> the appropriate "--template" option. (and of course use descriptions
> instead of application names in kickoff).
>
> This is of course just a first step, a very easy one though. I also have
> ideas for further steps, that, although lacking intimate knowledge of
> plasma's inner workings, I'd still call easy, too.
>
> But first I'd like to hear your comments. Are we on the same page with
> task-centric user interfaces? And would such a first step be feasible?
>
> michael
>

Yes, and... that's the idea behind raptor, no? ;-)

-Riccardo
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