Feedback to new Files startup screen - and a case for showing all file types

[Thomas Pfeiffer]

Hi,
I've just tried out the new startup screen for Files and even though it does 
address the problem it was supposed to address, I must say that in my opinion, 
it does not improve the overall situation, and here is why:

Thanks to Nepomuk, we can offer users various kinds of criteria for finding the 
resources they are looking for. This is what's cool about Files.
However, there is a discrepancy between how we use these different criteria and 
how users perceive them. For a user, all criteria are equal: File type, name, 
date, tags, rating, other things we'll be using in the future. They choose the 
combination of criteria that work best for their particular search/selection task.
Currently, though, Files does not treat them equally. We force users to choose a 
file type (or "Current Activity") and then further filter only among files of 
that type, so it's always "Filetype AND some other criterion". And I don't see 
the point in that from either a user's nor an interaction designer's 
perspective. Why is filetype a mandatory criterion? Shouldn't it just be an 
optional filter like all the others?
If the reason for this is that Nepomuk always needs filetype to be included in 
the query to work properly and fast enough, than this is a serious shortcoming 
of Nepomuk which we cannot just accept.
What if for example a user wants to see all files from a certain date in order 
to add them all to an activity related to an event afterwards? This is currently 
not possible, because she always has to select one type of file. The same goes 
for a tag.
Forcing to choose a file type is not "giving power to the user", but instead 
it's limiting them without any reason that's obvious to them. And this is why it 
feels counter-intuitive and weird to first have to choose a file type (or 
"Current Activity") before any files are shown. The problem isn't so much the 
presentation but the fact that users have to make a choice they don't 
necessarily want or expect to make at this point.

What users expect is to first see _all_ files and then be able to narrow them 
down until they see the one(s) they are looking for. This is how filtering 
works. First show everything, then reduce the results. If this would cause Files 
to load very very slowly because Nepomuk is too slow when doing a query for all 
files, then we'll have to look for a better solution to this serious problem. 
Forcing users to select a file type or Activity is not the solution.

I hope I made my point clear here. If not, just tell me and I'll try to give 
more arguments.

Cheers,
Thomas